One of the newest acquisitions to the collection of the Hunter Museum of American Art, is Counting by Lorna Simpson (1991, photo engraving and silkscreen, Printer Proof 2/4, Museum Purchase). This print metaphorically examines sensitive issues of race and gender. The work is divided into 3 sections, with fragments of text next to the three images, all presenting a variety of ways to mark time or space.

A series of times is listed next to the woman’s cropped portrait. Is this her schedule? Her work shifts? And why can’t we see her whole face? By removing markers of identity, Simpson makes the woman a symbolic representative, expressing the anonymity of black women during slavery and the civil rights movement. However, the nameless woman could also stand for the many women that have had to face oppression and inequality throughout time.

The building pictured in the middle is a South Carolina smokehouse that was once used for slave quarters. The time frame, ‘310 years ago,’ possibly references the beginning of slavery in the United States, while the ‘1575 bricks’ could refer both to the literal number of bricks in the building, and to the number of people enslaved over the years—the people it took to help “build” the country.

Hairstyles have always been markers of identity, ways for individuals to distinguish themselves from others and the intricate hairstyle pictured here could be a source of pride. But Simpson’s use of woven or braided hair in conjunction with her other images also alludes to how it can and has been used for stereotyping a whole race of people.

Simpson grew up during the Civil Rights movement and its aftermath, which has definitely informed her artwork. Simpson is recognized nationally and internationally, and she is in numerous major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.