Pérez Art Museum Miami

In this video, Gary Simmons talks about the themes that run through his work and his artistic process, including the creation of his monumental wall drawings.

For a transcript of this video, visit: mcachicago.org/garysimmons

Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark features a stage and speakers that are used for live performances. The speakers are covered with wood that was salvaged from the streets of New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina, known as the oldest African American neighborhood in the United States, and the site of many major events that have shaped the course of Black America in the past two centuries. Visible traces of that history are seen with spray painted marks on the wood. In the same way, the sculpture holds the memories of their use during past performances.  Presented in conjunction with Gary Simmons: Public Enemy, a schedule of programs can be found at the following link: Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark: A Celebration of Sound and Soul

The title of the work references Lee “Scratch” Perry’s legendary Kingston studio, the Black Ark. Not only was it a recording studio and production facility that served as a pivotal creative hub. It was also a central element in the development of reggae and dub music during the 1970s.  

Perry, born Rainford Hugh Perry in Jamaica, worked as a producer and engineer with artists such as Bob Marley and The Wailers, and countless others. He also was a composer himself and had his own band, The Upsetters, which was named after their first song, “I Am the Upsetter”–written by Perry as a diss track to a former collaborator. Perry’s work laid the foundation for the dub genre, defined by its emphasis on instrumental versions and studio manipulation (or “remixing”) of recordings, while his eccentric persona and forward-thinking approach continue to inspire and influence artists worldwide to this day.  

Like Perry’s studio, which was constructed using repurposed materials and DIY spirit, Simmons’s installation provides a platform for artists to come together and forge new sounds out of reclaimed parts. All the while the black star motif on the stage of Simmons’s sculpture alludes to the Black Star Line. A passenger vessel route launched in 1919 by the Jamaican political leader Marcus Garvey. Just as it was Garvey’s aim to facilitate personal and economic ties between Africa and Black people throughout the world, Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark provides a platform for artists to come together, symbolically actualizing Garvey’s dream of solidarity. Each time the sculpture is installed, Simmons invites the exhibiting venue to program a performance series inspired by local histories.    

Recapturing Memories of the Black Ark is a sculptural installation of a stage and speakers that are used for live performances.

The plywood stage features a black five-sided star painted on the floor to the left of the speakers. The speakers look like a ziggurat or pyramid-like structure. They are composed of old wooden crates, with each crate housing an individual speaker. Ratchet straps hold the speakers together. The bottom layer of the structure consists of four speakers, followed by a layer of two, then two rows of smaller ones. The topmost layer has two single speakers stacked atop one another.  The wood that makes the crates was salvaged from the streets of New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina. It is covered with painted marks that appear to be flaking off and worn. 

The works in this gallery allude to racial exploitation within the sports industry and mass media. While Black individuals are often at the center of sports and media spectacles, by removing these figures from the scenes, Simmons points out the ways that the individuality of these people are erased and replaced by racial stereotypes. 

These objects, shown without their human counterparts, ask the visitor to fill in the empty spaces with their imaginations. The only clues Simmons offers are embedded in the objects themselves. In the case of Lineup, empty gold-plated sneakers stand atop a winner’s podium with a police lineup as their background. The shoes are of recognizable brands such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, and Puma, forcing us to imagine the people who might be wearing them and why. Simmons connects these sneakers to the perception of Black youth, especially those whose style of dress might include shoes like these, as being seen as violent or criminal.

Throughout history, Black athletes have utilized their positions to protest racial injustices. The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City were marked by an iconic protest by two African American sprinters. Tommie Smith and John Carlos used the medal podium to express their solidarity with oppressed Black people worldwide by raising their fists in what is known as the “Black Power” salute. During the national anthem, they raised a black-gloved fist, symbolizing Black Power. The athletes faced severe backlash and threats for their protest, but their actions sparked a global conversation about racism and activism. 

Lineup is an installation made with screen print and gold-plated basketball shoes. It measures nine and half feet tall by eighteen feet wide and one and half feet deep.  

 

The installation consists of eight pairs of gold-plated sneakers which rest atop a low, white riser with three steps on its left side—bearing a resemblance to dais or an athletic podium. The sneakers are adult-sized pairs from recognizable brands, such as Nike Air Force 1, Adidas, Reebok, and Puma. Above the golden shoes and directly screen-printed onto the gallery wall are thin black horizontal lines. The lines are marked by a bolder line at every foot and with a corresponding number on the sides at the 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, and 90-inch marks, resembling height markers used in a police lineup.

The works in this gallery are arranged to recall a classroom, absent of its students. In Disinformation Supremacy Board, there are writing desks facing narrow white chalkboards. Each chalkboard has a piece of white chalk on it, which makes anything written on them hard to read. This artwork was created to show how the education system might have a narrow view of history and how certain stories or experiences are left out. It urges us to think about how history is taught and what might be missing from what we learn in school.

Although this installation was created in 1989, it still holds potent relevance today as politicians censor educational curriculum and ban books in attempts to hide or erase the realities of the past and the ways they continue to haunt our present.  In 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Individual Freedom Act into law. Commonly known as the Stop WOKE Act, it bans educators from teaching students critical race theory in public schools. In 2023, HB 999 was also passed, which allows the state Board of Governors to provide direction to universities on removing majors and minors in subjects including critical race theory, gender studies, and bar spending on programs or activities that support such curricula (such as DEAI programs). It also allows university’s boards of trustees to review a faculty member’s tenure at any time and take over faculty hiring without considering academic input. 

Again in 2022, Florida also passed the Parental Rights in Education act, which many have come to know as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It is a law that prohibits teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender with public school students. Although the bill itself does not explicitly use the word “gay,” it mentions “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Initially, the ban was for students in kindergarten through the third grade. However, in 2023 the bill was expanded to prohibit education on such topics all the way through twelfth grade. 

Disinformation Supremacy Board is an installation made with ten white boards, chalk, and five desks. Overall, its dimensions are approximately over eight and a half feet tall, fourteen feet wide, and five feet deep. 

The installation features five wooden school desks facing away from the viewer and towards ten tall and narrow chalkboards installed on the gallery walls. The chalkboards tower over the chairs, their surfaces painted completely white. At the base of each chalkboard rests a large piece of white chalk, making any attempt to write on the chalkboard futile and illegible. 

In the early 1990s, Simmons began a series of works made with chalk on chalkboards in what would soon become one of his signature techniques: erasure drawings. After completing the chalk drawings, the artist smudges and smears them with his hands to create the impression that they have been partially erased, giving them a ghostly quality.

Simmons asserts that popular culture is used to spread the ideas and belief systems of white supremacy in undercover ways, especially through film and television. He shows this in his erasure drawing by using images of popular vintage cartoons that are based in racist caricatures that played on television for decades, such as the crows from Disney’s Dumbo (1941) and more, spreading their content to the generations of people who watched it. Created directly on gallery walls, Simmons’s wall drawings—such as boom, seen here, and the trio of 1964 works that follow it—are impermanent: they exist in the world for only a brief time before they are painted over to make room for the next exhibition. These memories, although buried, erased and hidden, still form an inextricable part of the very fabric of the institutions and society we form part of.

Boom by Gary Simmons is an artwork made of chalk on a blackboard-painted wall. The dimensions for this piece vary depending on where it is shown. It is displayed in landscape orientation, meaning its longest side runs parallel to the ground.  

Boom depicts a cartoon image that features an all-white chalk drawing of an exploding cloud, set upon an all-black background painted directly on one of PAMM’s gallery walls. The whole picture is slightly smudged and blurred. This gives the overall artwork the appearance of a grey and dusty smokey haze. 

This drawing features a set of curved lines that round inward toward one another creating a small cartoonish cloud image. From this smaller cloud image, a larger series of curved lines surround and build out from the center of the chalk drawing that get larger with each layer. The artist has smeared these drawn lines with rapid movements that burst outward from the center expanding to the outermost edges of the drawing, accentuating the explosive movement of the cartoon clouds. 

Welcome to The Reading Room, located in the Kleh Gallery. PAMM took inspiration from MCA Chicago’s exhibition of Gary Simmons: Public Enemy, and recreated this space with additional information centered around Black History in Miami. We encourage visitors to use this space for reflection, a moment of pause, and further learning about Gary Simmons: Public Enemy. In The Reading Room, visitors can find books and reading lists created by PAMM Education staff, invited academics, and the artist himself. These books and accompanying reading lists all center around the topics and themes presented in this exhibition. We kindly ask visitors to help themselves to our physical and digital resources, and to please return books to the shelves after browsing.

You can access the reading lists by following this link: Gary Simmons: Public Enemy Reading Lists 

Reflection of a Future Past forms part of Gary Simmons’s project 1964, which consists of three monumental wall drawings made with his signature erasure technique. They expand the themes of his earlier erasure drawings that explore the ways popular media such as film or television spread racist beliefs. Together, these monumental works are set against bold backgrounds of red, green, and blue. The color palette references the red, green, and blue or “RGB” color spectrum that forms the basis of the images we see on color television, and all electronic screens. 

This work shows the New York State Pavilion, designed for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City, which served as a platform for various pavilions representing various aspects of American life and innovation. This iconic landmark of the fair was designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, consisting of the “Tent of Tomorrow,” Observation Towers (featured in Simmons’s drawing), and “Theaterama.” 

 

The fair itself was the brainchild of Robert Moses, the infamous urban planner who reshaped the city of New York in the mid-twentieth century. He served as the city’s Parks Commissioner and later as the head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. While he was responsible for the construction of numerous parks, highways, and bridges, his approach led to the construction of a dense network of highways and parkways that cut through many existing neighborhoods in New York, destroying communities that included many of the city’s poorest populations. 

Similarly, in Miami, the construction of I-95 in the 1960s led to the displacement of thousands of residents in Overtown, a predominantly African American neighborhood.

Originally known as “Colortown,” Overtown was the historic heart of Miami’s Black community. It is home to Lyric Theater, which hosted performances by famous jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Josephine Baker, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin and more who would stay in nearby hotels after playing at Miami Beach. By the 1950’s, the neighborhood’s population peaked. However, the highway physically divided the community, leading to social and economic challenges that the area continues to face today. The history of I-95 and Overtown reflects broader issues of urban development, racial segregation, and the lasting effects of highway infrastructure projects. 

Reflection of a Future Past by Gary Simmons is an artwork made of pigment and oil on panel. It measures ten feet tall and forty feet wide. The work is in landscape orientation, meaning that its longest side runs parallel to the ground. 

The background of this work is a rich royal blue. On this bright blue background are detailed line drawings of large buildings seen at a distance, in all white pigment and oil. These buildings are none other than the remains of the New York State Pavilion, which was designed for the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City.  

When standing in the center of the artwork, one drawing of the New York State Pavilion sits on one half of the blue wall space and is drawn on the opposite side in reverse. If the blue gallery wall that displays the two drawings could be folded in half, the markings of the New York State Pavilion on the left side would perfectly match the markings of the drawing on the right side. The lines are smudged by the artist in a curved motion to follow the rounded shapes of the architecture. The gestural marks add volume to the drawings and a sense of fast movement around the structures in this work, as if they were spinning. 

The New York State Pavilion consists of three individual structures tightly drawn together. The full structure of the pavilion consists of one low standing cylindrical structure, and two tower like structures. The lowest and widest building consists of nine upright cylinders of similar height, arranged in a ring. This structure is an open building with no walls, like the skeleton of a stadium. At the top there is a large band that connects all nine cylinders in a circular form, which contain an intersecting web-like grid at their centers. In its complete form, the lower structure resembles that of a nine-legged round table. 

The two taller towers in the pavilion drawing are diagonally placed behind the low wide building. Both towers are drawn as long and tall upright cylinders, resembling two parallel tree trunks. One tower is a bit shorter in height than the other. The tops of the towers have cylindrical structures that are the same size in diameter but are different in height, resembling axels drawn up from the ground with wheels placed on top of them.  

This painting forms part of a series inspired by the 1972 film “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,” which serves as an allegory for racial conflict and the rise of the Black liberation movement in the United States.

The film’s plot is loosely based on the Watts Uprising in 1965, a series of violent clashes between the Los Angeles police and residents of predominantly African American neighborhoods in South-Central Los Angeles. These confrontations began on August 11, 1965, and continued for six days. The immediate trigger was the arrest of Marquette Frye, an African American man, by a white California Highway Patrol officer. The officer who had pulled him over on suspicion of driving while intoxicated used excessive force while arresting Frye. The uprising is often remembered for the extensive fires set by the residents, which resulted in the destruction of hundreds of buildings and entire city blocks. Simmons draws a connection between the film and the rebellion by depicting dialogue from the movie as signs in Watts and creating paintings resembling burning buildings and landmarks in Los Angeles.

Hollywood is made with pigment, oil paint, and cold wax on canvas. It measures seven feet tall and ten feet across. It is in horizontal orientation, meaning that its longest side runs parallel to the ground. 

 

This minimal artwork features a flat crimson red background with white text. Across the center of the canvas is an image of the iconic Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. The sign is bright white and is depicted with Simmons’ signature erasure technique. From the main body of the text, he has drawn the paint and pigment upwards through quick gestural marks, blurring the tops of the letters which appear ablaze as flames engulf the sign. Beneath, overlapping wavy lines that delineate the hilly landscape below are also made with wispy gestural marks to indicate that the hill the sign stands on is also burning. 

In his latest work, Simmons returns to cartoon imagery after a pause of almost thirty years. These drawings made with his signature erasure technique recall vintage cartoons, and the use of popular media to spread racist ideologies. With this break reflecting the time between the police beating of Rodney King in 1992 and the 2020 murder of George Floyd, Simmons revisits his earlier work to show that even though a lot has changed, some things remain the same. He wants us to understand that the difficult and painful memories are the ones we need to face and deal with. Simmons believes that these memories, even though they may be hard to talk about, are the most important for us to address. 

Let Me Introduce Myself features the cartoon character, Bosko, who has appeared in numerous Gary Simmons erasure drawings. Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who conceptualized the character while working for Walt Disney Studios. The character was initially registered with the U.S. copyright office in 1928 as a “Negro Boy” named Bosko and was inspired by blackface characters from minstrel and vaudeville shows, though Ising would later deny this. Bosko became the star character of the Looney Tunes series, to be broadcast in various television programs in the 1950s. His character has made cameo appearances as recently as the 1990s cartoon, Animaniacs, as well as in the movie, Space Jam, in 1996.  

Let Me Introduce Myself is an artwork made with oil paint and cold wax on canvas. It measures eight feet tall by six feet wide and is in portrait orientation, meaning that its shortest side runs parallel to the ground.  

This artwork features a blurred image of a cartoon character in Gary Simmons’ signature erasure technique. The background of this work is matte black, with uneven washes of white that give it the appearance of an old chalkboard. The image drawn at the center is the cartoon character, Bosko. This character was introduced in the 1920s and widely perceived to be a racial caricature. 

Bosko is shown bowing, with an arm raised out and above his head holding a brimmed hat, as if greeting the viewer. The lines of the drawing are blurred with swooping gestural marks that exaggerate the movement of Bosko’s gesture. The lines are smudged in upward and downward strokes like an S, or as if an invisible hand attempted to vigorously erase the drawing.  

Bosko himself has a large, circular head with small ears. He has large, round oval eyes, a small nose, and a large mouth that is grinning wide. He only has four fingers per hand, drawn as rounded fingers in gloves in striking resemblance to the Disney cartoon character, Micky Mouse. 

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