Using icons and stereotypes of American popular culture, Gary Simmons creates works that address personal and collective experiences of race and class. He is best known for his “erasure drawings,” in which he draws in white chalk on slate-painted panels or walls, then smudges them with his hands – a technique that renders their imagery ghostly. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the MCA Chicago, The Walker Art Center and the Whitney Museum of American Art among others. Gary Simmons is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
Born 1964 in New York, New York.
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
EDUCATION
BFA, School of Visual Arts, New York, 1988
MFA California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, 1990
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Gary Simmons: Public Enemy, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
Gary Simmons. This Must Be The Place, Hauser & Wirth, London, UK
2022
Gary Simmons. Remembering Tomorrow, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, CA
2021
Gary Simmons: The Engine Room, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
2020
Gary Simmons: Screaming into the Ether, Metro Pictures, New York, NY
Gary Simmons: Dancing in Darkness, Simon Lee Gallery, Central, Hong Kong
2018
Green Past Gold, Simon Lee, London, UK
Within Our Gates, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2017
Fade to Black, California African American Museum, Los Angeles
Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark, Southern Exposure, San Francisco
Balcony Seating Only, Regen Projects, Los Angeles
2016
Ghost Reels, The Drawing Center, New York
Culture Lab Detroit
Post No Bills, Simon Lee Gallery, London
Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
2015
Project Gallery: Gary Simmons, "Frozen in Time," Perez Art Museum, Miami, Florida
2014
Fight Night, Metro Pictures, New York, New York
Extant Phantoms (Early Works), Ikkan Art Gallery, Singapore, Singapore
Sweet Science, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, Colorado
2013
Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
Arena, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA
The Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
2012
Gary Simmons, Metro Pictures, New York, NY
The Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth, Texas
2011
Shine, Simon Lee Gallery, London
After Hours: Murals on the Bowery, 262 Bowery, commissioned by Art Production Fund, New Yor
Black Marquee, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco
2010
Double Feature, SAKS, Geneva, Switzerland
Midnight Matinee, Metro Pictures, New York, NY
2008
Crawling Along the Edge of a Straight Razor, CAIS Gallery, Seoul/Hong Kong
Smoke, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Night of the Fires, Metro Pictures, New York, NY
2007
House of Pain, Simon Lee Gallery, London, England
2006
1964, The Bohen Foundation, New York, NY
2004
Criminal Slang, Metro Pictures, New York, NY
2003
Gary Simmons- Unique Drawings, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Gary Simmons, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
2002
Gary Simmons, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (Traveled to: SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY)
Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
2001
Ghost House, (site-specific installation) SITE, Santa Fe, NM
Desert Blizzard, Video Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2000
Wake, (web exhibition) The Dia Center, New York, NY
Bench Markers, Musée D'Art Americain, Giverny, France
1999
Currents 80, The Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, MO
1997
Gary Simmons: Gazebo, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
Galeri Charlotte Lund, Stockholm, Sweden
Montgomery Glasoe Fine Art, Minneapolis, MN
Wall Drawings, Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland
1995
The Fabric Workshop/Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Metro Pictures, New York, NY
The Contemporary, New York, NY
Gary Simmons: Erasure Drawings, Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
1994
Directions: Gary Simmons, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
1993
Galerie Philippe Rizzo, Paris, France
1992
Jason Rubell Gallery, Miami, FL
The Garden of Hate, Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, New York, NY
Roy Boyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1990
White Columns, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023
Desert X at Christies, Christies, Beverly Hills, CA
2022
Selections From the Collection of Elizabeth Marguiles, The Marguilies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, FL
What’s Going On, Rubell Museum DC, Washington DC
Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles, CA
Consequences. A Parlor Game, National Arts Club, New York, NY
2021
Pushing The Margins: A Survey of LA Artists, Galleri Opdahl, cur. Charles Gaines, Stavanger, Norway
2019
DX19, Desert X, Coachella Valley, CA
Prisoner of Love, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
2018
Walls Turned Sideways, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
Histórias Afroatlânticas, São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brazil
Second Look, Twice: Selections from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA
2017
Drawings from the Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Urban Planning, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Excerpt, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
An Incomplete History of Protest, Whitney Museum, New York
I am you, you are too, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
2016
Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney Collection, The Whitney Museum, New York
Paulson Bott Press: Celebrating Twenty Years, de Young Museum, San Francisco
2015
All the World's Futures, 56th Venice Biennale
The Past, The Present, The Possible, Sharjah Biennial 12, United Arab Emirates
Come As You Are: Art of the 1990s, Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Metropolis: Paintings of the Contemporary Urban Landscape, Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art LLC, New York, New York
Prospect.3: Notes for Now, Prospect International Contemporary Art Biennial, New Orleans
2014
Made by Brazilians, Cidade Matarazzo, Sao Paulo
Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarskey and the Architectural Assosciation, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis
Black Eye, Concept NV, New York
Encountering the City: The Urban Experience in Contemporary Art, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis
2013
Drawn to Language, Children's Museum of the Arts, New York, New York
Blackboard: Teaching and Learning from Art, Artipelag, Värdmö, Sweden
Painting in Place, LAND Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Los Angeles, CA
NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, New Museum, New York, NY
Merci Mercy, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, New York
PULSE Miami, Adamson Gallery, Miami, Florida
2012
Behold, America!, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA
Decade: Contemporary Collecting 2002-2012, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
The Bearden Project, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Thenceforward, and Forever Free, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee
2011
The American Art: Masterpieces from the Whitney, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
30 Americans, North Carolina Museum of Art, Chapel Hill, Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.
Building the Contemporary Collection: Five Years of Acquisitions, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Pandora’s Box: Joseph Cornell Unlocks the Museum of Contemporary Art Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
2010
Singular Visions, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2009
The Foundation of Contemporary Arts Benefit Show, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
NeoHooDoo: Art of a Forgotten Faith, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL
30 Seconds off an Inch, The Studio Museum, New York, NY
Collecting History: Highlighting Recent Acquisitions, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Nothingness and Being, The Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
Sites, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2008
An Unruly History of the Readymade, The Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
The Station, Midblock East, Miami, FL
30 Americans, The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
Gwangju Biennale, Korea
NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
2007
For the Love of the Game, Race and Sport in America, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, Hartford, CT
Collected Identities: Gifts from the Blake Byrne Collection, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC
Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2006
Fifth Interpretation of the Collection, La Colección Jumex, Pachuca, Mexico
The Constant Possibility of Erasure, Dorsky Gallery, New York, NY
Studio in the Park, produced by BravinLee Programs, Riverside Park Fund, New York, NY
2005
Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
Past, Presence, Childhood and Memory, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, NY
Looking at Words: The Formal Presence of Text in Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY
2004
Social Studies, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL
White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art, Center for Art and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD
2003
Whiteness, A Wayward Construction, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA
Raid the Icebox, Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Supernova: Art of the 1990s from the Logan Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
2002
New York Renaissance- Masterworks From the Whitney Museum of American Art, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
2001
I'm Thinking of a Place, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
One Planet Under a Groove- Hip Hop and Contemporary Art, Bronx Museum, Bronx, New York, NY (Traveled to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN)
Audible Imagery: Sound and Photography, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
2000
Art on the Line Comes Inside, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA
Point of Reference, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
1999
Sightgags, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
At Century's End, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL
Billboard, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams "Heaven," Kunsthalle, DŸsseldorf, Germany
American Century, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Videodrome, New Museum of Contempoary Art, New York, NY
Shoes, Frederieke Taylor TZ'Art, New York, NY
Rapture, Bakalar Gallery and Huntington Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
1998
The Campaign Against Living Miserably, Royal College of Arts, London, England
Drawings...Second Annual Invitational, Meyerson & Nowinski, Seattle, WA
Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Cut on the Bias, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1997
New York: Drawings Today, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
No Place (Like Home), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Gothic, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
Drawings, Meyerson and Nowinski, Seattle, WA
Trade Routes: History and Geography, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg, South Africa
No Small Feat, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Heart, Mind, Body, Soul: American Art in the 1990's, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
inSite97, Installation Gallery, San Diego, CA
1996
Imagined Communities, Oldham Art Gallery, London, England
Defining the 90's: Consensus Making in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
Under Capricorn: Art in the Age of Globalization, Stedelijk Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Getekend, Amerika! MK Espositieruimte, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
A/drift, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, NY
Fragments: Proposta per a una col.leccio de fotografia contemporania, Museo d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Spain
Inklusion, Exklusion: Kunst im Zeitalter von Postkolonialismus und globaler Migration, Graz, Austria
1995
Configura 2 - Dialog Der Kulturen - Erfurt 1995, Erfurt, Germany
1994
Urban Paradise: Gardens in the City, Paine Webber Art Gallery, New York, NY
Metro Pictures, New York
Summer Academy I, PaceWildenstein Gallery, New York, NY
Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (Traveled to: Armond Hammer Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA)
1993
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Thread Waxing Space, New York, NY
Contacts Proofs, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism, Fine Arts Gallery, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA
1992
Structural Damage, BlumHelman Warehouse, New York, NY
The Politics of Difference: Artists Explore Issues of Identity, University Art Gallery, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA
The Big Nothing or Le Presque Rien, The New Museum of Contemporary Art and French Cultural Services, New York, NY
How It Is," Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, NY
Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience, Whitney Museum of American Art at Equitable Center, New York, NY
Dissent, Difference, and the Body Politic, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Wall Drawings, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
1991
Interrogating Identity: The Question of Black Art, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York (Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN; Madison Art Center, Madison, WI; Center for Fine Arts, Miami; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH; Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC)
The Subversive Stitch, Simon Watson Gallery, New York, NY
Schwarze Kunst: Konzepte zu Politik und Identitat, Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst, Berlin, Germany
1990
Earth, Krygier/Landau Contemporary Art, Santa Monica, CA
Spent: Currency, Security and Art on Deposit, New Museum of Contemporary Art at Marine Midland Bank, New York, NY
All Quiet on the Western Front?, Espace de Dieu, Paris, France
Official Language, San Francisco Art Institute Galleries, San Francisco, CA
Total Metal, Simon Watson Gallery, New York, NY
AWARDS
2013
The Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize
2007
USA Gund Fellowship, Cleveland, OH
1991
Penny McCall Foundation Grant, Minneapolis, MN
1990
National Endowment for the Arts Interarts Grant
Gary Simmons
Bonham Marquee
2012
Color soapground aquatint.
Somerset white paper
Image size 36" x 27"
paper size 41" x 31½"
Edition of 35
Gary Simmons
Chandelier Spin
2012
Color soapground aquatint.
Somerset white paper
Image size 36" x 27"
paper size 41" x 30½"
Edition of 35
Gary Simmons
Starlite Theatre
2012
Color soapground aquatint.
Somerset white paper
Image size 27" x 36"
paper size 32" x 40"
Edition of 35
Gary Simmons
All Work and No Play
2011
Color soapground aquatint with sanding.
Arches white paper
Image size 12" x 56½"
paper size 16¾" x 62"
Edition of 20
Gary Simmons
All Work Reversal
2011
Color soapground aquatint with sanding.
Kozo paper
Image size 12" x 87½"
paper size 17" x 91½"
Edition of 20
Gary Simmons
Double Swing Hallway
2011
Color soapground aquatint with sanding.
Somerset white paper
Paper: 6 panels each 19½" x 25"
Totaling 59" x 50"
Edition of 15