One of the foremost artists of a generation which emerged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gary Simmons has achieved wide acclaim over the past three decades for his work which explores the politics of race, class and social stereotypes through painting, sculpture, sound and architectural environments.
Simmons uses imagery drawn from popular culture to create works that address personal and collective memories. For the artist’s first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in London, Simmons presents a selection of new paintings and sculptures. This exhibition coincides with the first comprehensive institutional survey of Simmons’ work, ‘Gary Simmons: Public Enemy,’ which will be on view at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from 13 June – 1 October 2023. Covering over thirty years of his career, this institutional show will be the most in-depth presentation of the artist’s work to date, traveling to Pérez Art Musem Miami from 5 December 2023 – 24 April 2024. In this new body of work, Simmons employs the erasure of the image, a technique that has become synonymous with his practice, as a powerful and recurring metaphor. Simmons is best known for his figurative paintings in which white outlines of characters, scenes and words—based on 20th-century cartoons steeped in the racist traditions of minstrelsy, disappeared architectural sites, vintage film title cards, evaporating clouds of smoke and stars—are painted on chalkboard-like surfaces, then blurred and smeared by hand.
| Duration | 25 May 2023 - 29 July 2023 |
| Times | Monday to Saturday 10 am – 6 pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Hauser & Wirth (London) |
| Address | 23 Savile Row, London, W1S 2ET |
| Contact | / london@hauserwirth.com / www.hauserwirth.com |