Laurie Simmons

The American artist Laurie Simmons is known for her photographs featuring tiny dolls representing stereotypical female roles in domestic interiors. Her series In and Around the House (1978/79) is exemplary for this set-up photography. The series is the centerpiece of the exhibition, with 56 black-and-white images showing a doll occupied with the mundane chores of a housewife in the cozy environment of a dollhouse. The exhibition “Laurie Simmons: Dollhouse Photographs”, a collaboration of Sammlung Goetz, Deutsches Theatermuseum and FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, presents a selection of works by Simmons that cast a critical gaze at gender stereotypes in the American middle class.

Simmons is considered a key figure of The Pictures Generation, a loosely organized group of American artists that questioned the role of mass media and consumer culture, beginning in the 1970s. While artists Richard Prince or Sherrie Levine often worked with photographs of ads from magazines or art history books, Simmons built her own artificial miniature worlds as sets for deconstructing societal roles. 

On the occasion of the FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, the exhibition also features Simmons’ first cinematic work “Music of Regret” (2005/6) with Meryl Streep, a three-part musical in which she brings her objects to life. 

© Laurie Simmons, Courtesy Sammlung Goetz. Foto: Münchner Stadtmuseum.