Gary Simmons “Fight Night”
Metro Pictures
This event has ended.
Gary Simmons presents paintings and drawings along with a 40-foot wall-installation. The immense installation on the gallery’s back wall comprises 160 posters for historic boxing matches that Simmons manipulates with saturated colors and his signature “erasure” technique, a process in which Simmons partially obscures elements of his drawings and paintings, leaving behind disintegrated traces of his subject. Mounted on plywood, the installation references ephemeral promotional posters pasted on the sides of buildings and pre-graffiti defacement. Also exhibited is a series of paintings with boxers’ nicknames. Invented by promoters and journalists, many of these names, such as “Boston Tar Baby,” were often overtly racist. Simmons is fascinated by these and less egregious names like Rubin “Hurricane” Carter for their ability to transform, if not dehumanize, boxers from men to behemoths in the minds of spectators. An expert draftsman, he meticulously paints these nicknames and then with gloved-hands defaces his pristine paintings, rubbing the surface of the works to mimic scrolling names in film credits, giving the text a sense of motion and temporality.
Media
Schedule
from October 30, 2014 to December 13, 2014