Gary Simmons on the erasure of racist tropes: ‘I don't want them to be forgotten for their menace’
In Gary Simmons’ new show, ‘This Must Be the Place’ at Hauser & Wirth, London, the artist explores the process of cultural erasure, and the traces it leaves behind

Gary Simmons came to success in the recession of the early 1990s in what he thinks of as a window of market correction that left New York’s surviving galleries with empty walls waiting to be filled. This led to a series of commissions and shows including participation in the landmark group show ‘Black Male’, curated by Thelma Golden. In this moment of chance, Simmons and his peers grabbed what could have been a fleeting moment, and shone.
‘It was a great opportunity and at the same time you also felt that you were unsure when it was going to end; you almost expected it to end, like the party's over,’ Simmons recalls as we sit to talk at Hauser & Wirth, London, where he has just opened a new show, ‘This Must Be the Place’. ‘So, these memorable moments and installations and statements, I think that is the difference between then and now; this was during moments of crisis, the Aids crisis, the financial crash, [and] different race issues going on with not only the politicians but also with police – there was a response from the artists on the walls.’
Installation view, ‘Gary Simmons. This Must Be the Place’ at Hauser & Wirth London until 29 July 2023
Gary Simmons, How Soon Is Now, 2023. Oil paint and cold wax on canvas
‘This Must Be the Place’ at Hauser and Wirth’s London comes ahead of Simmons’ first survey ‘Public Enemy’, opening at MCA Chicago in June 2023. The artist is on buoyant form as he looks both back at his career and forward to this career milestone, which will feature iconic works such as The Black Ark and Garden of Hate.
The London exhibition, which features a series of paintings and his first large sculptural works, contains all the motifs we would expect from Simmons. We see a layered and scraped-back painting featuring a blurred ‘Bosko’, the racist 1930s Looney Tunes character, a sculpture of the famous crows from Dumbo and a series of black and white stars, blurred by hand. This process of erasure evokes lost histories in tandem with the artist’s desire to somehow memorialise the existence of these tropes, and in turn, shed light on the issues of today’s cultural landscape.
‘I don't want people to not remember or idealise moments. I think that we have a way, whether it's a cartoon or an event, of treating it; if it was good then we sort of even make it bigger than it was, if it was bad, we make it worse than it was. I guess the nature of memory is to abstract it and it never gets fixed… We take a photograph to preserve a moment, but that's a distortion of that moment…Disney and cartoons are like that. I don't want them to be forgotten for their menace. I think it's important to know that those things were once embedded into something that presented itself as one thing, but it has this undertone, this undercurrent.’
Simmons describes these elements of the cultural landscape as ghosts haunting the common consciousness and captures them in canvas form. ‘Some of the backgrounds take such a long time to develop and I never really know truly where they're going,’ Simmons explains. ‘It just keeps going and then the painting just tells me when it's ready for what sits on top of it. It creates this sense of depth. I think that the haunting comes in when those colours flash as those moments pop out.’
Sometimes these flashes are not tropes but stars; be they shooting stars, star showers or a lone black or white star, they sum up the space between the magical and the tragic, flaming out as they cross the sky. Flanked by the birds evoking Jim Crow and Hitchcock’s The Birds, these paintings show an optimistic side to this radical artist even when cohabiting with more sinister elements of history.
Installation view, ‘Gary Simmons. This Must Be the Place’ at Hauser & Wirth London until 29 July 2023
Gary Simmons, Ghost Town Skies, 2023. Oil paint and cold wax on canvas
Installation view, ‘Gary Simmons. This Must Be the Place’ at Hauser & Wirth London until 29 July 2023
Gary Simmons, ‘This Must Be the Place’, until 29 July 2023, Hauser & Wirth London. hauserwirth.com
-
Birkenstock celebrates its most memorable styles with colourful capsule (and matching socks)
Birkenstock marks the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Gizeh, Arizona and Madrid sandals, respectively, with limited-edition versions
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Zara Home and Vincent Van Duysen’s second collection is a hymn to conviviality
Zara Home+ by Vincent Van Duysen Collection 02 is the second chapter of the sophisticated collaboration and is focused on dining, featuring furniture, tableware and accessories
By Rosa Bertoli • Published
-
The Arbor House brings quiet minimalism to a suburban Aberdeen site
The Arbor House by Brown & Brown is a low-energy home in suburban Aberdeen that brings calm and minimalism to its sloped site
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
All eyes on Christina Quarles, the painter inventing a new figurative language
Los Angeles-based artist Christina Quarles is in her element, with two major solo shows underway at Hamburger Bahnhof and Hauser & Wirth Menorca
By Emily McDermott • Published
-
Remembering Phyllida Barlow (1944 – 2023): a titanic force of British sculpture
We look back on the life and work of Phyllida Barlow, revered British sculptor, educator and Hauser & Wirth artist who has passed away aged 78
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Berlinde De Bruyckere on religion, chaos and decay: ‘simplicity is the territory of humans’
We speak to Belgian sculptor and visual artist Berlinde De Bruyckere ahead of her show ‘A simple prophecy’ at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse, 26 January – 13 May 2023
By Martha Elliott • Published
-
Rashid Johnson in Menorca: a journey through migration, longing and togetherness
We visited Rashid Johnson’s Brooklyn studio ahead of the artist’s show at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, which contemplates drift – physical and emotional
By Osman Can Yerebakan • Published
-
Amy Sherald’s vivid, triumphant portraits reframe Black personhood in Western art
In ‘The World We Make’ at Hauser & Wirth London (until 23 December), American painter Amy Sherald raises critical questions about the position of Black bodies in Western art
By Elisha Tawe • Last updated
-
The Audley: a first look inside Artfarm’s new art-filled Mayfair pub
For its first London project, hospitality company Artfarm has given new life to the 18th-century Audley Public House which opens today in Mayfair. We offer a first look inside the new pub, which is a hub for history, community, hospitality and world-class contemporary art
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated
-
Ida Applebroog at Hauser & Wirth: raw, confessional and darkly comical
At Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a major new show by Ida Applebroog takes viewers through a labyrinth of dark twists and sharp visions of the human condition
By Nick Compton • Last updated
-
Sex, wit and cigars: five contemporary artists on Marcel Duchamp
After 60 years out of print, the seminal 1959 monograph Marcel Duchamp is back in circulation courtesy of Hauser & Wirth Publishers. To mark the occasion, we asked five contemporary artists – Ed Ruscha, Gillian Wearing, Larry Bell, Monica Bonvicini and Mika Rottenberg – what Duchamp means to them
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Last updated