There are several ironies at play in Hauser & Wirth’s presentation of Gary Simmons’ paintings. thin ice. The focus of the exhibition is the artist’s drawing of the character Bosko, a blatantly racial film created in 1928 by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. racist comics by saying “Hmm! That’s good!” (Respect to H&W for using the word “racist” when describing black comics, rather than the more analgesic “racialized.”)
The six black-and-white oil paintings featuring Bosco’s skates look almost like studies for later works, given Simons’s signature blurring and partial erasure of figures. But in this series, the daubing of the figure is uncharacteristically done in a way that doesn’t make it look like a ghost. in his retrospective public enemy At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, ghosts were a major theme that I addressed in my essay for the exhibition catalogue. In this case, however, what I get is a blurry representation of the mid-spin phase of the skater’s motion, with some traces of glacial blue peeking out in the background, reminding us that the playing field is the original substance of ice.
By noticing the position of Bosco’s arm, I grasped an irony. In the six “Going Through Progress” paintings, especially #1 and #6, arms float gracefully at head level, following the skater’s forward motion like a flag being swept backwards by the speed of the body’s churning motion. Figure skaters use arm position to maintain balance and control the speed of turns and spins, but ultimately Simmons depicts these moves as representing more than just self-mastery. They illustrate the dilemma at the heart of American popular culture.
Professional skater imitation puerto bras Ballet movements. “Port de bras” refers to the posture and position that the arms should assume to elegantly complement the movement of the legs in a dance tradition that originated in France. The image is a perfectly American hybrid: a body that is suggested to be black—evident through exaggerated facial features and the use of black vernacular in other contexts—that nonetheless contorts itself into the idealization of European conventions lines, it only appears intermittently.
Our culture both celebrates and denies the human body—sometimes simultaneously. We long for funk, a deep, grounded sensuality sometimes mistakenly associated only with black people (although other cultures have their own versions of funk), but then seek to transform the performing body into an idealized linear form. We want both: sensual pleasure and The promise of transcendence, we realize through the conjecture that we are the eternal flame hidden in blood and bones. We engage in repetitive dances with our romantic partners, longing for that moment of ecstasy and feeling like we might be leaving our bodies behind.
The second aspect of irony comes into play given that Bosco’s actions are called “progress.” The character was invented in 1928, nearly 100 years ago, at a time when, as we do now, anti-immigrant sentiment was at a fever pitch. A century ago, this attitude sparked a wave of anti-immigration legislation. According to the National Park Service:
The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 placed numerical limits on the number of immigrants who could enter the United States for the first time. The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the National Origins Act) made quotas more stringent and permanent.
The current president-elect just won a presidential campaign in part because of his rhetoric describing non-European immigrants as greedy, dangerous savages who were “poisoning the nation’s blood.”
As Simons’ Bosco cycles through the various stages of rotation until reaching the beginning of the movement again, we cycle through our fears and desires for bodies that might reveal to us what we are capable of. At this moment, it feels like the culture is making little progress. More often than not, all we did was make elaborate circles on the ice over and over again until the music stopped.
Gary Simmons: Thin Ice The exhibition continues through January 11 at Hauser & Wirth (134 Worcester Street, SoHo, Manhattan). The exhibition is organized jointly by the gallery and the artist.
