Art21 Extended Play

Laurie Simmons | Dancer Greg Sinacori

EXCLUSIVE: Dancer Greg Sinacori during the making of Laurie Simmons’s The Music of Regret (2006) at the Alvin Ailey Dance Studio, New York.

Laurie Simmons stages photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as ‘living objects’, animating a dollhouse world suffused with nostalgia and colored by an adult’s memories, longings, and regrets. Her work blends psychological, political and conceptual approaches to art making, transforming photography’s propensity to objectify people, especially women, into a sustained critique of the medium.

Laurie Simmons, production stills from

SEE: More images, videos, and news for Laurie Simmons.

LEARN: Laurie Simmons is featured in the Season 4 (2007) episode Romance of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.

DISCUSS: What do you think about this video? Leave a comment!

PHOTO | Laurie Simmons, production stills from The Music of Regret – Act III, 2006. © Laurie Simmons, courtesy the artist, Salon 94, and Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York.

VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins & Nick Ravich. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Mark Sutton. Artwork courtesy: Laurie Simmons. Thanks: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.