{"id":5905,"date":"2019-09-16T14:38:58","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T14:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=5905"},"modified":"2019-09-16T14:39:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T14:39:34","slug":"a-sailcloths-soul-danny-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=5905","title":{"rendered":"A Sailcloth\u2019s Soul: Danny Simmons"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Sailcloth\u2019s Soul: Danny Simmons<\/b><\/h1>\n

Throughout the history of American modernism there have always been self-taught,\u00a0 trained, mid-career and emerging artists in the periphery. Their fertile ideological intersections have shaped the narrative of\u00a0 American visual culture for centuries. Within this narrative classism and white supremacy coexist as a language understood by its prey, but not comprehended by its perpetrators.\u00a0 This makes it difficult to explain the social and economic disease of classism and white supremacy, to those who lack the personal experience of it. And yet the psychological and genetic effect\u00a0 of this disease continues to be replicated within the collective activity of artists, dealers, collectors, curators, critics, appraisers and academia. The art work of Danny Simmons engages audiences to\u00a0 examine the various mutations of this disease that afflicts identity and community in order to confront the crucial movement toward the ultimate cure— one humanity for many nations and tribes to know one another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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How Dare You, Danny Simmons<\/p><\/div>\n

Currently\u00a0 inclusion, diversity , equity and access have become critical priorities\u00a0 for the arts and culture communities in North America. The changing demographics\u00a0 require new intellectual voices and cultural sensibilities at decision making tables. Within corporate arenas, in order to\u00a0 ensure profitable quarter summaries, they coined business vernacular like \u2018diversity and inclusion\u2019 to shape the spirit of\u00a0 diversity to strategically earmark women, Black, Latin X and LGBTQ communities in global and transnational markets for their products and services.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0An\u00a0 essential part of reaching \u00a0 these audiences, in both sectors,\u00a0 is educating and exposing current decision makers to divergent thought processes that shape broader definitions for\u00a0 value, identity, community, and participation. But, what does that really mean and look like? Perhaps the best analogy is described by Dr. Johnetta Cole, Ex Officio President of Spelman College, in which she likens diversity, equity, access and\u00a0 inclusion to an invitation to a dance. She states, \u201c Diversity is when everybody is invited to the dance. Equity is when there are no special invitations to the dance because everyone gets one. Access is when everyone comes to the dance and accommodations are made to ensure their participation.\u00a0 And, inclusion, is when everybody is asked to the dance according to the music of their choosing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The most consistent\u00a0 invitation to \u2018the dance\u2019 comes from artists.\u00a0 They represent society\u2019s visual conscience within the\u00a0 private vistas of their intellectual and cultural aesthetic.\u00a0 Their statements reflect simple universal complexities that shape a lifetime of values, hopes, dreams, challenges and triumphs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Danny Simmons is hosting\u00a0 today\u2019s dance for a global currency in <\/span>Alone Together<\/span><\/i> at the\u00a0 George Billis\u00a0 Gallery in Chelsea.\u00a0 He is an autodidact\u00a0 multimedia artist based in Philadelphia.\u00a0 His perspective as a painter, printmaker, poet, novelist, producer, community\u00a0 builder, teacher and self-proclaimed hippie is ever present in his work. Perhaps being a politically astute hippie during the\u00a0 1960\u2019s can be likened to a Jungian dream cycle in which a rigid dominant culture was unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom. Like his contemporaries through\u00a0 extreme deviation he was able to break away from the social constraints of previous decades of social norms about clothing, music, drugs, sexuality, education, formalism, flamboyance and<\/span> social order.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the 1970\u2019s he witnessed the\u00a0 reformulation of \u2018otherness\u2019 in the wake of civil rights, Black Power, feminism, gay\u00a0 liberation, simultaneous to Southern black vernacular art receiving belated recognition as a major contributor to\u00a0 American culture. This intensified his commitment to community development through art, education and social justice.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the\u00a0 1980\u2019s the conservative politics\u00a0 of President Ronald Reagan held sway as the\u00a0 Berlin Wall crumbled, new computer technologies emerged,\u00a0 Madonna\u2019s \u2018Material Girl\u2019 echoed decadence; aids activism began to save lives, MTV shaped pop culture, Hip Hop surfaced and significant collections of African American art increased.\u00a0 Sampling in music bled into the fine art world in which borrowing, copying and altering pre-existing images and \u2018modern art\u2019 were redefined by neo-conceptualism which embraced photographic appropriation and\u00a0 neo expressionism in painting, utilized an expansive range of mixed media techniques.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0 1990\u2019s\u00a0 was a fairly calm decade that ushered in the radical\u00a0 era of communication through the internet for business and entertainment, popularity of celebrity culture, the emergence of\u00a0 art biennials and fairs, including the National Black Fine Art Show, the first fair to feature galleries devoted to presenting Black artists.\u00a0 Thematically globalism was the focus for institutions and artists which sparked hot debates about race, sexuality and multiculturalism, as evidenced in the\u00a0 controversial 1993 Whitney Biennial curated by Thelma Golden, John G. Hanhardt, Lisa Philips and Elisabeth Sussman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the issues raised\u00a0 in the 1993 Whitney Biennial spilled into the first\u00a0 decade of the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century\u00a0 amplifying the impact of \u00a0 globalization. The accelerating\u00a0 interconnectivity and communication of information through technology, compressing time and space, provides a multifaceted understanding to\u00a0 how images participate in the construction of identity, gender, class, power, and other social and political values.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Deep Desire by Danny Simmons<\/p><\/div>\n

Currently, Simmons is\u00a0 paying attention to the rethinking of \u2018otherness\u2019 during a Trump presidency.\u00a0 Focusing on specific individuals – black, brown, immigrant and non-Christian people – grappling with\u00a0 deep-rooted contradictions in social, political and economic policies, veiled in variations of violence and institutional apartheid.\u00a0 This is contrasted by art institutions and collectors who are ferociously clambering to fill the historic and aesthetic gaps in their American\u00a0 collections to conceal their abiding history of \u2018black art accession disorder\u2019. They created a legacy that excluded meritorious art produced by American artists of\u00a0 African descent based on preconceived pseudo-scientific definitions, that Black people were incapable of producing fine art because of the erroneous classification as\u00a0 sub-human, unintelligent, monkey-like breeders, only good for physical labor to justify slavery in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simmons\u2019s new body of work leads the focus on\u00a0 the cultural production of self-taught and trained artists without distinction or apology because\u00a0 of the pressing themes addressing identity, social issues, the environment and Black consciousness.\u00a0 Throughout the arch of Simmons epoch historical references, he continues to ask quintessential and familiar questions\u00a0 about human existence: Who am I? What is my purpose? How am I related to the world? How is the world related to me? Am I being true to my values? Do politics impact the answer to our humanity? Why do we have to be alone, together?<\/span><\/p>\n

Danny Simmons paints in a small soundless studio\u00a0 in contrast to many artists who work with loud music\u00a0 in larger spaces. It has taken thirty years to define his vision and hone his aesthetic beyond the artists he has studied. \u00a0 Time taught him how to detach himself from distinct memories and experiences, without amputating elements of a life well lived. This does not mean that a cacophony of silence is void of the universal impact music has on the human psyche like the folk music of Odetta and Nina Simone, the psychedelic rock of\u00a0 Jimi Hendrix, the cool jazz of Miles Davis and the urgency from hip hop\u2019s Public Enemy. Quiet solitude enables him to embrace self-awareness to examine the existential core of being human in contemplation of a universal truth. Like Yoda he becomes one with the internal process of his practice which frees him from distracting strictures of class, race, gender and history. This is the focus of Simmons current body of work- humanity- which for him is born from knowing oneself in order to see others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Simmons is not a social realist. \u00a0 Using abstraction as a mirror like Oscar Wilde\u2019s <\/span>The Picture of\u00a0 Dorian Gray,<\/span>\u00a0 Simmons\u00a0 addresses human complexity shaped\u00a0 by the mortal ego\u2019s worst attributes of power, materialism, envy and greed.\u00a0 He uses abstraction to distance himself from literal racial artistic language, as well as, stereotypes about\u00a0 self-taught black artists. Like Norman Lewis, his concern with race and systemic racism is symbolically juxtaposed\u00a0 with bold black and white brush strokes. In <\/span>Unknown,<\/span><\/i> Simmons\u2019s black, white, beige and red orbs represent the audience as\u00a0 different tribes struggling to coexist in one world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His examination of\u00a0 inclusion, diversity, equity\u00a0 and access through shape, line, color\u00a0 and form begs the answers to: How can we overcome\u00a0 ego that drives the disease of \u201cI am better and more entitled and worthy than you?\u201d\u00a0 Comparable to life, viewers are embraced and deceived by the allure of the arresting color in his work to deliberately provoke personal\u00a0 inquiry about self and how we can better navigate, witness, cooperate and change the world\u2026.together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In\u00a0 <\/span>Requiem for Headhunter<\/span><\/i> Simmons is searching for his primordial identity and asking the viewer if he\/she\/they\u00a0 know their identity. Not as an American, a believer, a man, a woman, a spouse, a parent, an artist, a sibling, a partner, or a friend.\u00a0 He is searching for the archetypal parity of being a human being. The <\/span>Requiem for\u00a0 the Headhunter<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 is \u201c Use your head to find your true self\u201d, which\u00a0 resonates with the forty-year-old United Negro College Fund Scholarship slogan, \u2018A Mind is\u00a0 A Terrible Thing to Waste. The new slogan is \u2018A Mind is A Terrible Thing to Waste but a Wonderful\u00a0 Thing to Invest in. Invest in Better Futures. <\/span>Requiem for Headhunter<\/span><\/i> is looking for a better future for everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In <\/span>How Dare You<\/span><\/i> coexistence can be harmonious, contentious and separate while being\u00a0 intertwined and parallel. Simmons is questioning why we are still struggling with being able to respectfully agree to\u00a0 disagree? Why aren\u2019t we treating one another with mutual regard and compassion? He creates a distinct abstract language of color and\u00a0 mark making inspired by his admiration for Wilfredo Lam, Norman Lewis, Achille Gorky, Afro-Cobra, and Aboriginal art to express his ideas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

African art forms\u00a0 are particularly relevant to\u00a0 Simmons\u2019 aesthetic as part of an understanding of\u00a0 self and empowerment. \u201cThe backdrop of my work is African\u00a0 because all of humanity emanated from Africa.\u201d In <\/span>This Deep Desire<\/span><\/i>, a limited edition quadratych is comprised of four different distinct interchangeable prints. Each manifests\u00a0 vibrant abstractions as vivid expressions that create geometric patterns of primordial imaginations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Secluded Omo<\/span><\/i>, Simmons embraces process-based work in which he treats the canvas\u00a0 as a textile. He uses bright primary colors and complexity with biomorphic forms\u00a0 that emphasize lyrical color and personal content. Like Wilfredo Lam, Simmons use of\u00a0 African abstraction in line and form combined with Aboriginal dots to provide reference to spiritual\u00a0 secrets that are always ever present and often undiscernible to the naked eye.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Inasmuch as his work is intersected with abstract messages about humanity gleaned from the necessity of\u00a0 being \u2018woke\u2019 in the world, the atmosphere of the paintings in this show is joyful and energetic. In <\/span>Borders<\/span><\/i> his mark making is visibly integrating\u00a0 bold, thick, smooth shapes and layered splatters.\u00a0 Simmons\u2019s work presents a window into the psyche of humanity by way of\u00a0 asymmetrical, symmetrical, sometimes lopsided and overlapping compositions . The nuance of difference and conflict is an\u00a0 abstraction in itself, which is why addressing the shortcomings of society requires critical reassessment that exceeds superficial buzz words and band aids. These complementary, contrasting and harmonious iterations of togetherness reflect individual differences,\u00a0 that when joined together, represent a hopeful and better future for humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The George Billis Gallery\u2019s guest curator, Robin King asserts<\/span>, <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Alone Together<\/span><\/i> is about\u00a0 breaking down the walls\u00a0 that society puts around us and the boxes we arrogantly put others in. I want us to\u00a0 recognize that in our differences there is strength and within our uniqueness is our commonality.\u00a0 I am interested in the conversation that builds the world anew, where we can recognize and extol our differences to celebrate and respect them. Danny Simmons work does this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Halima Taha, Writer, Art & Culture Strategist and Author of\u00a0 <\/span>Collecting\u00a0 African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

c tahathinksllc\/halimataha 2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Danny Simmons Alone Together Exhibition September 3-28, 2019 at George Billis Gallery<\/h3>\n
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\u00a0525 W 26th St, 7th floor, New York, NY 10001 * (212) 645-2621 * Contact: Robin King<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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