Rose B. Simpson: Counterculture at Whitney Museum of American Art 2022-2024

Rose B. Simpson, Counter-culture, 2022, at Field Farm, Williamstown, MA. Twelve sculptures in stained concrete and steel with ceramic ornaments and cables. Each sculpture: 128 x 24 x 11 inches. Commissioned by Art & the Landscape, a program of The Trustees, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the artist, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. © Rose B. Simpson. Photograph by Stephanie Zollshan

Rose B. Simpson: counterculture opens on the fifth-floor terrace of the Whitney Museum of American Art on Saturday, June 3. Simpson is a multidisciplinary artist who works across ceramics, metal, printmaking, painting and performance, highlighting the connections between our contemporary lives and the landscapes we inhabit. The exhibition at the Whitney will feature five large-scale sculptural figures – including three works recently acquired for the Whitney’s collection – which offer a wise reminder of the ancient past and the natural wonders of the land we inhabit.

“My goal with this presentation at the Whitney is to remind us that we are not independent,” Simpson says. “The inanimate are watching, and we are responsible not only to the present but also to the ancestral spirits that inhabit a particular place.”

Simpson titled both the exhibition and the individual works Counter-culture as a reference to the importance of communities that live apart from the dominant cultures but still have a significant cultural impact. Vigilant figures serve as stand-ins for those colonization sought to silence, including the Lenape people, who inhabited much of present-day Manhattan and the surrounding area until they were forcibly relocated in the 17th century. century. The sculptures are adorned with jewelry handmade with clay mined from the earth as a nod to the history of the place and the natural world. Overlooking the city and the Hudson River, the five figures suggest an awareness of the world beyond our current reality.

In autumn 2023, the terrace installation will be accompanied by a billboard on Gansevoort Street, opposite the museum entrance. In a collaboration between Simpson and filmmaker Razelle Benally, the photographic image poses a figure on the New Mexico landscape, notably wearing a necklace similar to those worn by the figures on the terrace. Displaying the sculptures with the billboard underscores Simpson’s ongoing commitment to working through media while emphasizing his insistent consideration of our relationship to the stories of particular and distinctive places.

“Simpson is a major artist of her generation who thinks deeply about the relationship between sculpture and place, and it is hugely meaningful to showcase her monumental works in this vibrant outdoor venue in the Whitney,” says Jane Panetta, Nancy and Fred Poses, Curator and director of the collection at the Whitney Museum.

Presented in two stages, Rose B. Simpson: counterculture will run from June 3 to August 13, then close briefly before reopening from October 4 to January 21, 2024, with the addition of a display board opposite the museum entrance on Gansevoort Street. The works on display at the Whitney were previously part of an installation organized by the Trustees of Reservations in Williamstown, MA.

Rose B. Simpson: counterculture is organized by Jane Panetta, Nancy and Fred Poses, curator and collection director, with Roxanne Smith, senior curatorial assistant.

More information about Simpson and the exhibit can be found on the museum’s website.

Recognition of the lands of the Whitney Museum

The Whitney is located in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The name Manhattan comes from their word Mannahatta, which means “island of many hills”. The current site of the museum is close to land that was a Lenape fishing and plantation site called Sapponckanikan (“tobacco field”). The Whitney acknowledges the displacement of the original inhabitants of this area and the Lenape diaspora that exists today.

As a museum of American art in a city home to vibrant and diverse Indigenous communities, the Whitney acknowledges the historical exclusion of Indigenous artists from its collection and program. The Museum is committed to addressing these erasures and honoring the perspectives of Indigenous artists and communities as we work for a more equitable future. To learn more about the recognition of the territory of the Museum, visit the Museum website.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983, lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) is a multimedia artist whose work explores the impact, both emotional and existential, of life in the postmodern and postcolonial world. Having grown up in a multigenerational and matrilineal line of artists working with clay, her practice is inspired by indigenous tradition.

Androgynous clay figures adorned with found and manufactured objects are often the basis of Simpson’s practice. The plays are ruminations on family, gender, marginality, and the effects of these aspects on self-understanding. While the choice to work with clay is linked to family relationships, the hereditary nature of the material also adds to the concepts presented. Just as individuals are shaped by memory and experience, clay objects become a record of the process that shaped them. The resulting pieces are both powerful and vulnerable, and offer intimate recordings of self-exploration.

Simpson holds a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Art, an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian. Arts. She has recently had solo exhibitions at Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia, PA), ICA Boston (Boston, MA), Wheelwright Museum (Santa Fe, NM), Nevada Art Museum (Reno, NV), and SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, Georgia). Museum collections include Denver Art Museum, ICA Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Nevada Art Museum, Pomona College Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Princeton University Art Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

ABOUT THE WHITNEY

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), houses the most important collection of American art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Ms. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when the public was still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From his vision was born the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has championed America’s most innovative art for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and exhibit American art of our time and to serve a wide variety of audiences to celebrate the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. . Through this mission and an unwavering commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force for modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art. Today.

VISITOR INFORMATION

The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort Street between Washington and West Streets, New York. The opening hours are as follows: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday, 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed on Tuesdays. Visitors 18 and under and Whitney Members: FREE. Admission is charged on Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Vaccination against COVID-19 and wearing a face covering are not mandatory but strongly recommended. We encourage all visitors to wear a face covering that covers their nose and mouth throughout their visit.