FOR OCT 4

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM FEATURES ERASURE DRAWINGS BY GARY SIMMONS

CBS/lsb set 9/27 # 499826

NEW YORK CITY — The Studio Museum in Harlem has opened “Gary Simmons,” a survey of the artist’s work of the past seven years, with some 35 drawings, photographs, sculptures and videos. The show runs through January 5.

The most extensive museum presentation of Simmons’s work to date, the exhibition was curated by Thelma Golden and co-organized by The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MSC). Included are two major new works made especially for the exhibition — a sculpture and a large, site-specific wall drawing.

Using popular cultural references as his point of departure, Simmons established his reputation in the early 1990s with a body of work addressing identity. Since the mid-1990s, his work has increasingly encompassed a wide range of cultural meanings, often inspired by objects and images from the American vernacular landscape.

With insight into subjects that address racial stereotypes in history and pop culture, Simmons creates works with simple materials, being best known for his erasure drawings. These expansive compositions are executed in white chalk on slate-painted panels or walls, then smeared and smudged by the artist’s own hands, leaving ghostly interpretations of the original image.

 The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog, available at the museum store for $25.

A New York native, Gary Simmons (born 1964) received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in graphic design and illustration, and later received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in Velencia, Calif.

The Studio Museum in Harlem is at 144 West 125th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Lenox Avenue. For information, 212-864-4500 or visit www.studiomuseum.org.