16 December 7-13, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | News | letters | coNteNts | it was created in 1993, but in Us & Them, we’re talk- ing about universal ideas of us and them that we all can relate to.” Absence is felt most sharply in Lineup. Eight pairs of gold-plated sneakers are placed in front of a police lineup chart. The men that might have filled them are nowhere to be found — dead? Disappeared into the hell of the prison system? Created in 1993 as sneaker culture began its rise, the piece also consid- ers the strangeness of a world where human life is cheaper than a consumer good like a pair of Jordans. “At that moment in the early ’90s, it was relatively new, this idea that sneakers were this valuable thing that people would steal off people’s feet,” Sirmans says. “So then Gary, taking those kinds of shoes and bronzing them, like we used to do with little kids when they have their first shoes, it’s this way of kind of memorializing it, this way of kind of giving it some patina of longevity, because otherwise we just buy new shoes and throw them away. But in this case, it’s also then positioned into this lineup space, which is a kind of commentary on the lack of an actual body that’s attached to these shoes. So, are we actually considering a person? No, we’re putting the com- modity, this shoe, above the person, and then we use the lineup as the backdrop. And so it’s also playing into the idea of crime — how did someone get these, and why is it something that somebody would actu- ally commit a crime for?” All these artworks have a ghostly quality — the spectral quality of the chalk smears, the empty gar- ments in Lineup, and the rack of Ku Klux Klan robes that make up Six-X. Simmons himself alludes to this in a discussion in the show’s catalogue. “A ghost is a presence you feel but cannot see. It’s the hidden ele- ment in the room, the mental traces that are always with us: personal experiences, fantasies, percep- tions, or world events. My work, in general, comes from the memories of events and images that I, and I imag- ine others, are haunted by.” The car-driven infrastruc- ture built by racist planners haunts us. Memories of deni- gration and dehumanization haunt us. But not every ghost in “Public Enemy” is unfriendly. Reconstructing Memories of the Black Ark, a tribute to Lee “Scratch” Perry, the legendary reggae producer, is also included in the show. Taking the form of a hodgepodge stack of speakers meant to evoke a classic reggae sound system, the PAMM plans to activate the installation with musical per- formances several times throughout the run of the show, creating something akin to the collaborative process in Perry’s Black Ark studios, or perhaps the Bronx street parties that gave rise to hip-hop. Music, community, joyful moments — these are things that can linger longer than trauma. “Gary Simmons: Public Enemy.” Tuesday, December 5, through April 28, 2024, at Pérez Art Museum Mi- ami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-375-3000; pamm.org. Tickets cost $12 to $16; free for members and children under 6.
[email protected] Blank from p 14 Gary Simmons, Lineup, 1993 Gary Simmons’ work is highlighted in “Public Enemy” at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. © Gary Simmons/Photo by Ron Amstutz Photo by Tito Molina/Hrdwrker “MY WORK, IN GENERAL, COMES FROM THE MEMORIES OF EVENTS.”
Miami 12-07-2023
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