![]() Recovering and reproducing these iconic, highly recognizable images confronts the viewer with the precarious living conditions of African Americans both past and present. ![]() However, the subjects remain recognizable and through the work of art, they denounce a past discrimination, which unfortunately is still rooted in today’s society. This technique contains an important intrinsic meaning: the desire to erase what these figures represent: images full of hatred and born with the intent to mock and offend the African American people. So the artist alludes to history, to the impossibility of forgetting, no event can ever be entirely erased and therefore forgotten almost as if artistic practice were for him a vain attempt to remove a stereotype and the traces of an essential and profound pain. For Simmons, the theme of image erasure reconnects to a distant memory, the memory of chalk on a blackboard, a memory where the image or writing is erased, but the dust and the imprint of the chalk always remain imprinted on the black support. A sort of aura is thus created around stereotypical simulacra of American culture, making these figures appear to be in motion, blurred and dissolved in the environment. This is a technique that generates a blurred effect bordered by hard dark lines. Gary Simmons appropriates stereotypes from American popular culture through what he expressly calls “erasure drawing”. ![]() His works refer to the situation and experiences of the African American population in the United States. Gary Simmons, is an American artist born in New York in 1964. ![]()
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