Lorna Simpson’s ‘Source Notes’: Where memory melts, identity emerges and the ice never lies

Lorna Simpson does not emerge quietly. She manifests—a force of consciousness cloaked in elegance, uncoiling through image and memory like smoke through a locked room.

Her work does not ask for permission. It pierces, seduces, dissolves. In a world addicted to the disposable, she traffics in the eternal—layering ink, icon, and ache into compositions that seethe beneath the surface. Each piece is a velvet scalpel, slicing the gauze of constructed history with the precision of a surgeon and the intuition of a priestess.

At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lorna Simpson: Source Notes transforms the act of looking into an initiation, summoning viewers into a space where meaning is never fixed, and identity is always becoming.

Now open at The Met Fifth Avenue, Source Notes debuted on May 19 in the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery. The exhibition—Simpson’s first major museum presentation focused exclusively on her painting practice—runs through Nov. 2.

“Head on Ice #3” by Lorna SimpsonPhoto by Avalon Ashley Bellos

This show illuminates a decade of work by the artist, a landmark moment in her trajectory. It expands her legacy beyond conceptual photography into a richly layered visual language of pigment, pressure, and presence.

This is not simply a survey — it is a vortex. More than 30 works—paintings, collages, and sculptures—fill the space with quiet force.

Highlights include selections from her celebrated Special Characters series and the hypnotic pieces first shown at the 2015 Venice Biennale. The exhibition shimmers with contradiction and depth, making visible the fault lines between identity and illusion.

“Ghost Note” by Lorna SimpsonPhoto by Avalon Ashley Bellos

Simpson draws from archives that have both glamorized and erased: vintage issues of Ebony and Jet, the Associated Press, and the Library of Congress. These “source notes” are the starting point for compositions printed on fiberglass, wood, and clayboard, then submerged in pools of acrylic and ink. From these layered surfaces, figures surface and dissolve—ghosts reclaiming their shape through abstraction.

To call Simpson a painter narrows the conversation. She is an architect of meaning, a reanimator of suppressed memory. Her surfaces are not merely beautiful—they are dangerous. They vibrate with the tension of what has been seen, hidden, erased, and finally resurrected. The accompanying sculptural works echo this energy with corporeal grace, grounding her visual mythology in tactile form.

“Three Figures” by Lorna SimpsonPhoto by Avalon Ashley Bellos

Organized by Lauren Rosati, Associate Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, the exhibition invites intellectual immersion rather than passive viewing. A major monograph, the first devoted to Simpson’s paintings, accompanies the show with contributions from Hilton Als, Adrienne Edwards, David Breslin, and Rosati—each providing critical reflections on the evolution of Simpson’s practice.

Lorna Simpson does not engage in spectacle. She distills, reclaims, and elevates. Her presence at The Met is not a debut—it is a declaration. One of the most vital visual philosophers of our time has offered her latest chapter, and the invitation is clear: enter carefully, look deeply, and prepare to be undone.

“Detroit. Ode to G.” by Lorna Simpson. Photo by Avalon Ashley Bellos

Lorna Simpson: Source Notes is on view through Nov. 2 at The Met Fifth Avenue, Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, Floor 1.

For those who seek meaning beyond image and memory beyond narrative, this exhibition offers no conclusion—only revelation.

Visit metmuseum.org and follow @metmuseum for details.