Laurie Simmons: Woman as Object

Laurie Simmons has of late become known as HBO GIrls’ Lena Dunham’s mom. But Simmons is famous in her own right since the 1970s as a conceptual artist and photographer. She stages scenes featuring toys, dolls, dollhouses and other objects that speak nostalgically and disturbingly to the role of women in society.
Her photograph, “Walking Gun” (1991), is one of a series splicing dolls legs with inanimate objects like a cake, camera and handbag, forcing the theme of women as objects.