If Not Winter
September 23 - October 30, 2010
Michael Kohn Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artists Simmons & Burke.
For their second solo show in Los Angeles, the artists have created a collection of work that underscores their now iconographic style. Using the Internet as their source material, Simmons & Burke have effectively combed through millions of images and sounds, appropriating these once disparate elements into the grand narratives of their art. Embracing a sense of horror (literally, a fear of empty spaces) in their artwork, Simmons & Burke fill the entire surface of these works, creating depth from rich layers of imagery and sound.
On view during this show will be four large-scale works with audio from their newest series, If Not Winter. A selection of richly textured “Composites” that resemble cloud studies comprised of Internet-found images will be present, as well as “Palettes” (a collection of jigsaw-like elements containing images collected from the Internet) and “Cutouts” (artworks created upon dissecting an image from its background, emphasizing absence as a subject matter).
Simmons & Burke began their collaboration in 2006 with their Temple series. Case Simmons studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and Andrew Burke received his MM from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Their work is held in La Colección Jumex, Mexico City, and in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum, New York.