Introduction to Wake



There is an absence in Gary Simmons' work -- from his child-sized Klan robes (6X, 1990) or row of empty gilded sneakers (Line Up, 1993), to his recent photographs of uninhabited pedagogical spaces -- that is as salient as any presence one could portray. The act of imagining the people who might inhabit these objects and spaces invites a speculation ultimately more unsettling than facing any corporeal presence.

For Wake, Simmons photographed nine dance spaces, each devoid of people and each shot in a style reminiscent of portraiture. These rooms range from ornate, baroque ballrooms to a single relatively austere auditorium. Simmons does not present them in their entirety: rather, each is programmed in such a way that sections of the image are revealed as the viewer passes a mouse across the screen. In what might be considered a visual metaphor for the act of remembering, as each fragment appears it begins immediately to fade, making it impossible to see the complete image at one time. Weddings, dances, and other special occasions that take place in venues like these, while sometimes monumental in our memories, in retrospect seems like just a flicker of time.

In a twist on the technique employed in Simmons' most well-known work, erasure, the movement of the viewers' hand across the screen wipes away the empty whiteness. Simmons began drawing with chalk partly out of practical reasons -- he had a large supply of blackboards at his disposal -- but he quickly became attracted to the formal qualities and performative aspects of what has become an ongoing series of Erasure Drawings. On blackboards and walls, Simmons has first sketched, then partially erased, imagery addressing issues pertaining to race, pedagogy, and culture. Having completed the drawings he begins to obliterate them, leaving partially erased images that emanate a feeling of loss. "I like the idea of the trace…the information that blurs in and out…it's like a ghost...kind of there, sometimes not," Simmons said at a talk he gave at MOMA in 1999.

In Wake, the act of erasure is reversed and placed in the hands of the viewer. Simmons capitalized on the interactive potential of the medium by turning over some control to the user: there are infinite possibilities for the imagery created while exposing the image. Simmons was also interested in devising a place within the web that overlaid the act of navigating networked space with the act of navigating, or revealing, the representation of a physical space. And, as is the case in surfing the web at large, the path traversed is always different, the entirety never grasped.

The audio segments that accompany the screens are excerpts from well-known songs popular in earlier eras, including Blue Moon, Cry me a River, Mr. Sandman, Falling in Love Again, and more. A male and a female voice hum the well-known sections of each song, most often as a duet. This humming, which feels at times as if it were coming from inside one's own head, emphasizes the intensely personal feel of the spaces within Wake, whether romantic, nostalgic, or sad. The title is telling given that "wake" has two different meanings, both evoked here: evidence of a passing and the mourning of a loss.

Sara Tucker



Gary Simmons



Selected One Person Exhibitions:

1992 "The Garden of Hate," Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, New York (ex brochure)
1994 "Directions: Gary Simmons," Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. (ex. brochure)
1995 The Fabric Workshop/Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (two-person exhibition with Glenn Ligon)

"Gary Simmons: Erasure Drawings," Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles (ex.brochure)
1997 "Gary Simmons: Gazebo," Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

"Wall Drawings," Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland (ex. cat.)
1998 Margo Leavin, Los Angeles

Metro Pictures, New York


Selected Bibliography:

1997 Nancy Princenthal, "Gary Simmons: Disappearing Acts," Art & Text, May-July pp.52-57

Anthony Vidler and Peter Wollen, Scene of the Crime, The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA (ex. cat.)
1998 Gary Simmons, essay by Nancy Princenthal, The Gallery of the Department of Art & Art History, Dana Arts Center, Colgate University (ex. broch.)

Homi K. Bhabha, "The White Stuff," Artforum, May, pp. 21-24

Claudine Isé, "Gary Simmons," Art Issues, September/October, p. 44
1999 Insite97: Private Time In Public Space, essays by Susan Buck-Morse, Néster Garcîa Canclini, George E. Lewis, José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, Insite97, San Diego/Tijuana (ex. cat.)