3 posts tagged "Laurie Simmons"
Laurie Simmons’ New Collaborator:
Gossip Girl
Gossip Girl returns to the air tonight at 9 p.m., and sources tell Style.com it’ll have a new guest star: contemporary artist Laurie Simmons (right, with gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn). The “Pictures Generation” photographer and portraitist appears on the show to create a commissioned portrait of the van der Woodsens—one that, one presumes, will hang alongside the Richard Phillips they’ve already got. It isn’t the first time the fashion and style world has reached out to Simmons: Thakoon collaborated with the artist on a series of prints for his Spring ’09 show (blooming roses with human legs, in tribute to her Walking and Lying Objects series from the eighties). Nor is it Simmons’ first turn onscreen. She had a starring role—as a contemporary artist who shoots miniature interiors, not unlike her own work—in Tiny Furniture, her daughter Lena Dunham’s award-winning indie film.
The Art Set Toasts Duro Olowu
Just who is the customer for Duro Olowu’s intensely arty, vibrant patchwork dresses (this season inspired by Picasso)? Who else but intensely arty, vibrant women? At a lunch today on the sixth floor of Barneys, in addition to co-hosts Amanda Brooks and Olowu’s wife, Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum of Harlem, there was Nicola Vassell, a director at Deitch Projects; the gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn; the textile designer and art collector Olya Thompson; and the artist (and Thakoon Panichgul and Peter Jensen collaborator) Laurie Simmons. The lattermost was fresh off a plane from the South by Southwest Festival, where, as she put it, her daughter Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture “just cleaned up.” Simmons co-starred in the movie with her other daughter, so she was still “flying.” She wasn’t the only one. Olowu’s color-block dresses (pictured), sweaters, and two-tone trench were flying off the trunk sale racks.
blasblog: bidding for barack
Not long ago Ahndraya Parlato, an artist and photography professor at Ithaca College, became frustrated that she wasn’t rich enough to donate a big chunk of cash to Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Then, as the election neared, she became even more frustrated when her teaching schedule prevented her from volunteering time to canvas the swing states. Her response? To create an online auction of fellow photographers’ works, with proceeds going to Obama’s campaign, the Democratic party, and nonprofits dedicated to spreading the Obama word, like Moveon.org. The result has been an outpouring of donations from the likes of Todd Hido (pictured), Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas, David Maisel, and Laurie Simmons. So, attention Democrats and politically motivated modern photography collectors: The auction goes live on October 1. And remember to keep checking back, as additional lots will be posted as the auction nears.