Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This chromogenic print from 2012 by artist Xaviera Simmons is titled "Index Two Composition Three." The vertically oriented photograph is just over 4 feet high by 3 feet wide and centers an accumulation of layered objects. The items are attached together haphazardly with clothespins and other materials and cover a vertical cylindrical structure.

The objects include a braid of light brown hair, a green palm frond, a tin can hanging from twine, and a ceramic jug hanging from a knot of red pantyhose. Vintage postcards and drawings hang from clothespins at various angles alongside cutout photographs and an image of singer and fashion icon Grace Jones. At the bottom center of the print hangs a slightly crumpled white square of paper reading “The Far West” in silver capital letters. The precariously layered items appear to have personal significance. In photograph form, the colorful objects appear flattened and abstract, like a collage on paper.

Upon closer study, one might notice that the structure is in fact a person from the waist down, though the body is so entirely covered in objects, it is difficult to decipher the person underneath. The only visible body part is a knee and calf wearing yellow tights near the lower left of the photograph, almost unrecognizable, peeking out from behind the attached items.

The body seems to be wearing a long skirt, which the wearer has lifted up to reveal the collection of objects attached to and covering their waist and legs underneath. The skirt flares upward from the waist in a funnel shape, filling the upper right of the photograph and concealing the wearer’s upper body and face. The objects, once hidden under the skirt, seem like they could be a pleated or ruffled underskirt.

It is as if this person has lifted their skirt to perhaps anonymously reveal their story or unveil their history. In displaying these objects, what has this person revealed to us? We may question, Why do they move across the world as a carrier of these historical and cultural accumulations?

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