Desert X 2019 artists Nancy Baker Cahill and Gary Simmons: In Conversation
Date & Time:
Thursday, August 1, 2019
9:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Location:
CenturyLink Field Event Center (Christie’s Theater)
In an exchange moderated by Shamim M. Momin (Senior Curator, Henry Art Gallery), the artists will discuss their experiences of working site-specifically for Desert X, among other projects, as it pertains to their very different practices, the presence of the body and physical experience across both analog and digital realms, and the politics of audience engagement.
NANCY BAKER CAHILL (Cambridge, Massachusetts, born 1970) is a Los Angeles based artist who uses drawing, video, original sound, and augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) to frame the body as a complicated abstraction, and site of ongoing struggle and resistance. Her goal with all of her projects is to offer unexpected perspectives to new audiences that in turn provoke conversation and affect a broader cultural dialogue.
GARY SIMMONS (New York City, born 1964), a Los Angeles–based artist, utilizes icons of U.S. pop culture, architecture, and film in his drawings and paintings, which address personal and societal issues of class and race. Racial identity and politics are essential to his work, ruminating on how perception of the past creates uncertainties in the formation of present and future American society.