Gary Simmons

PRESS RELEASE

Gary Simmons

2 October – 2 November 2007

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by New York artist Gary Simmons. Exhibiting at the gallery for the second time, Simmons’ new paintings and drawings focus on the architecture of Philip Johnson.  
 
Simmons first visited the topic of Philip Johnson architecture in March 2006 in an exhibition at the Bohen Foundation in New York City entitled 1964.  At the Bohen Foundation, Simmons incorporated images of Johnson’s best-known design, The Glass House, in an exhibition of large-scale site-specific wall drawings.
 
In this exhibition, Simmons has highlighted five lesser-known or critically controversial Johnson buildings: the Mr. & Mrs. Robert C. Wiley House in New Canaan, CT; the Mr. & Mrs. Eric Boissonnas House in New Canaan, CT; the Big Sur project house (never built); the Free Standing project house (never built); and the Puerta de Europa in Madrid, Spain.
 
The conflicting duality of Johnson’s work mirrors Simmons’ own oeuvre; the combinations of light and dark, density and weightlessness, airiness and vast scale; the juxtaposition of strength and beauty.
 
Continuing to employ his signature ‘erasure’ style to works on paper and canvas - a process that relies wholly upon the artist’s touch and physical motion - the flowing, beautiful marks seen in Simmons’ works belie the raw nature by which they were achieved.