LAUREN E. SIMONUTTI | 1968 – 2012

It is somewhat at a remove, but no less sad, to mourn the passing of a person whose artwork comes into your purview and you find it enticing and uncanny and unsettling in the best way ― and then you find out that they passed some time ago. There won’t be anything more than what is already there, and there is a finality there – even a loss, perhaps, though it’s oddly ‘retroactive’, though that word seems inexact – that adds a further tinge of sadness.

Simonutti passed at the age of 44 : her struggle with schizophrenia ‘consumed her until she was torn from life’ (to quote one of the many online testimonials to her). It was not stated in any of my research whether she took her own life, but the idea that the darkness swallowed her is not an unconsidered one, nor one that I offer without empathy.

A number of Simonutti’s evocative images appeared in my social media feed, and that led me to research a bit more, and become enamoured of her haunting photographs. Perhaps that’s a dangerous word – ‘haunting’ –  to use : she passed over a decade ago, and her images still proliferate appropriately, but there’s that notion of what is left behind and lingers…like a ghost. If you believe in such things, that is.

These are powerful images, and have even more to consider in that the artist died so young, and struggled with mental illness. Often, as a critic, I wonder if my words add more or simply distract : when considering writing about her work, this was a concern, and so I thought it best – most appropriate – to present them with the more resonant words of others that engage in a dialogue with the photos, perhaps in unison, perhaps in a contested manner.

I will say very little, but will try to be like Bruno LaTour’s assertions about what an art critic should be, and try to simply offer a bit of direction while not being overt and overbearing….

Simonutti, in speaking of her life and work, was unapologetic and frank about her struggles with mental illness. When I read her words, I was reminded of one of my favourite statements about ‘sanity’ (it comes from G. K. Chesterton, whom I have mixed feelings about, but I became familiar with it from Timothy Findley’s fine book HEADHUNTER – which I cite below – so I feel Findley’s empathy overrides Chesterton’s smug catholic ‘knowing’…) :

The madman is not the man who has lost his reason.
The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

This was where Marlow began the treatment of every patient.

I also thought of Findley’s HEADHUNTER for an exchange between Doctor Marlow and the sister of one of his patients. They’re discussing how Marlow wants Olivia’s permission to discharge her sister Amy, who is an award winning, acclaimed poet but also suffers from bouts of schizophrenia :

Olivia who had been faithful in her visits—and had seen Amy twice a week—said: “But she hasn’t been cured.”
Marlow said: “She will never be cured, Mrs. Price. Never. As a consequence, we have two choices. We can opt for one Amy or another.”
“One or another?”
“One of them—assuming we can adjust her medication successfully—would spend the rest of her life in a drugged condition that would amount, in effect, to sedation. This Amy would have no poems, no birds, no Wormwood [her cat], no other world but the dead world out there now—and she would be incapable of responding to it. It would simply be a landscape through which she moved— deadened, uncaring and uninvolved.”
“And the other Amy?”
“The other Amy would have a minimum of medication. Only enough to reduce the extremities of her anxiety. She would be a slightly less tense version of the Amy we have now.”
Olivia looked from the window. “What would become of her?” she said.
“She could go home to her house—and be with her birds.”
“But—dear God. Doesn’t freedom put her in jeopardy?”
“Not in my view, no,” said Marlow. “It would give Amy back the only life in which she can function—in which she is happy.”
“What about her writing?”
“There is every chance this Amy would continue to produce poetry. After all, the Amy who wrote in the past was very nearly the Amy we have.”

 

---

 

An excerpt of Simonutti’s own insightful and almost painfully self aware words :

This is a visual narrative of an unexpected & devastating situation in which I find myself, which also is relevant to the lives of many others. It’s just not often spoken about.

Madness strips things down to their core. It takes everything, and in exchange offers more madness, and the occasional ability to see things that are not there.

I’ve selected a number of Simonutti’s images below to share, with my ‘speaking in collage’ to accompany them. I have attempted to find a synchronicity between the tableaux the artist has presented, and the titles and words she chose to accompany them.

 

---

 

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again.
― Anna Akhmatova

 

 

The ceiling is moving | Moving in time
Like a conveyor-belt | Above my eyes
When under ether | The mind comes alive
But conscious of nothing | But the will to survive
― PJ Harvey, When Under Ether

 

And Desire walks the endless pathways of its body, certain that he, or she, or it, is in sole and only control of its destiny. The only inhabitant of the twilight realm of Desire; and it feels nothing like a doll. Nothing like a doll at all.
― Neil Gaiman, The Doll’s House, from Sandman

 

 

It is said that scattered through Despair’s domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart. Despair says little, and is patient.
― Neil Gaiman, Season of Mists, from Sandman

 

---

An intermission – or fracture, edit as you will – to offer more of Simonutti’s insightful words (from here) : Over the last five years, which I spent alone in the middle of these 8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds and 199 panes of glass, this is what I saw here. This is what I learned. I tell myself that I only had two alternatives – either I seized the rise of my madness until my sanity allowed me to do so, or I left a documentary of all this, in the event that I should lose. 

---

 

But in the first moment of her waking up
She knows she’s losing it | oh | yeah, she’s losing it
When the first cup of coffee tastes like washing up
She knows she’s losing it | oh | yeah, she’s losing it
Oh | yeah | she’s losing it
― Belle and Sebastian, She’s Losing It

 

In Shinto, everything has a soul. Even if you don’t want the dolls anymore, you can’t abandon them. There is a special ceremony that is performed for them at a shrine. It’s like a ceremony for a dead person. Since dolls have a human form, they must be treated as such.
― Shin Takagi

 

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
― Dorothy Parker, Resumé (1926)

 

Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while.
― Neil Gaiman, Exiles, from Sandman

Sing me to sleep
I’m tired and I
I want to go to bed
Sing me to sleep
Sing me to sleep
And then leave me alone
Don’t try to wake me in the morning
‘Cause I will be gone

― The Smiths, Asleep

 

It’s a memento, and memento means something that helps you remember.
She’d rather have a forgetto.
― Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last

 

The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I’ll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
― Suicide is Painless, Johnny Mandel

 

---

More of Lauren E. Simonutti’s work can be seen here, the blog she maintained while alive where she shared her images is here and a wonderful article about Simonutti’s art and aesthetic can be enjoyed at LensCulture here.

It is titled Photographic notes from a madhouse…..

An artist talk can be watched here. Her artist’s page at the Catherine Edelman Gallery is still online here.

I’ll end with her own words : If I don’t have a picture of something I can’t be sure it happened.

 

~ Bart Gazzola