Gary Simmons

Gary Simmons (born 1964, New York, NY) is an American contemporary artist known for his powerful explorations of race, memory, and the afterlives of American popular culture. Working across painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, and photography, Simmons interrogates the visual codes of cartoons, cinema, sports, music, and architecture to reveal how racial stereotypes are embedded in collective memory. He is best known for his signature “erasure drawings,” in which he smudges chalk drawings on black walls or panels to create ghostly, blurred images—figures that haunt historical narratives and expose the persistence of racist iconography in American culture. Simmons’s work is deeply rooted in the landscapes of urban America, Black cultural histories, and the politics of visibility. Over his three-decade career, Simmons has exhibited at the Whitney Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Venice Biennale. In 2023, he was the subject of the major retrospective Public Enemy at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.