Gary Simmons (artist) facts for kids

Gary Simmons (born April 14, 1964) is an American artist from New York City. He uses well-known symbols and ideas from American popular culture. Through his art, he explores personal and shared experiences about race and social class. He is most famous for his "erasure drawings." In these works, he draws with white chalk on panels or walls painted with a special slate-like paint. Then, he smudges the drawings with his hands. This technique makes the images look like ghosts or faded memories.

Artworks and Exhibitions

Early Art Creations

Gary Simmons earned his first art degree from the School of Visual Arts in 1988. He then received his master's degree from CalArts in 1990. Soon after, he received important grants for his art.

After finishing school, Simmons found a studio in an old vocational school in Manhattan, New York. The space had several old-fashioned, rolling classroom chalkboards. He started using these chalkboards as canvases for his art. These early works explored ideas about mis-education and how people think about race and class.

In the 1990s, Simmons mostly worked with chalk on boards or walls painted with chalkboard paint. He liked how chalk art could be unclear and not permanent. For these artworks, he often used images from old cartoons that showed black caricatures. For example, in a wall drawing called Wall of Eyes (1993), the black surface was covered with many cartoon eyes of different sizes, without bodies.

The Erasures Series

Chalkboard Drawing #3 (1992) at the Rubell Museum DC in 2022

Simmons's most famous group of artworks is his Erasures series. He began this series in the 1990s and still creates wall paintings in a similar style. Chalkboards are a perfect material for these works because they remind us of teaching and learning. Simmons uses the idea of a place where history is taught. He then uses "erasure" to rethink ideas about power.

He redraws old cartoons that showed black caricatures. Some of these images are clear, while others are erased into a blurry, dream-like state. These caricatures remind us of a time when black people were often shown in media as happy, carefree entertainers. The erasing makes the images look like they are floating or like ghosts.

The act of erasing itself is a way of making a mark. It involves a sweeping motion that is different from the sharp lines of the original cartoon. Simmons uses this technique to bring up America's difficult past. He wants to change how we see it, but he also wants it to be remembered. Many of his exhibitions feature this unique style. One of his large wall drawings was recently shown at Metro Pictures Gallery. This exhibition, called "Midnight Matinee," featured paintings and drawings that showed semi-erased images from 1970s horror films.

Ghoster (1997)

Sculpture and Installation Art

Gary Simmons sees himself mainly as a sculptor. His early three-dimensional artworks used strong symbols of unfair treatment. These included signs, hoods, and nooses related to the Ku Klux Klan. One artwork, called Duck, Duck Noose (1992), shows chairs in a circle, each with a KKK hood on it. In the middle, a noose hangs from the ceiling. In Klan Gate (1992), two brick pillars stand on either side of a large iron gate. On top of each pillar is a stone carving of a Klan member.

In a later work, Big Still (2001), Simmons looked at the lives of poor white people in Appalachia and the South. He recreated a moonshine rig from the Prohibition era. This was a device used to make illegal alcohol by poor people in rural areas. The sculpture is large and powerful.

In 2014, the Pérez Art Museum Miami asked Simmons to create a special artwork for their project gallery. The artist made a large indoor mural that was 30 feet tall and 29 feet wide.

Gary Simmons: Public Enemy Exhibition

The exhibition Gary Simmons: Public Enemy opened on June 10, 2023, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. This is the most complete look at Simmons’s career so far. It covers thirty years of his work and includes about seventy pieces. The exhibit explores the history of racism through different types of American visual art.

Art Collections

Gary Simmons's paintings, drawings, and sculptures have been shown in many places. These include museums across the US and around the world. Some notable places are the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, SITE Santa Fe, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His works are also part of private collections. These include the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Images for kids

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  Chalkboard Drawing #3 (1992)

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  Ghoster (1997)