The Brooklyn Rail’s ‘MONUMENTS NOW’ Artist Panel

Photo by KMDeco Creative Solutions: Mark DiConzo

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Friday, November 13 • 1pm EST • On Zoom

As part of their ongoing “New Social Environment” series, The Brooklyn Rail hosts a virtual conversation with three artists whose respective major monument installations inaugurated Socrates’ ‘MONUMENTS NOW’ exhibition over the course of summer 2020: Jeffrey Gibson, Paul Ramírez Jonas, and Xaviera Simmons. Socrates Curator & Director of Exhibitions, Jess Wilcox, also joins. The discussion will be moderated by The Rail’s Malvika Jolly.

Speaker Bios

Jeffrey Gibson

Jeffrey Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hudson, New York. His artworks make reference to various aesthetic and material histories rooted in Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in modern and contemporary subcultures. Gibson is a recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant.Gibson’s previous exhibitions include, Jeffrey Gibson, ‘LIKE A HAMMER,’ organized by the Denver Art Museum, and ‘This Is The Day,’ organized by The Wellin Museum. Other notable solo exhibitions include: ‘The Anthropophagic Effect’ (2019) The New Museum, New York; ‘Look How Far We’ve Come!’ (2017), Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee; ‘Jeffrey Gibson: Speak to Me,’ (2017), Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Oklahoma City; and ‘A Kind of Confession’ (2016), Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Savannah.

Paul Ramírez Jonas

Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California in 1965 and raised in Honduras. Educated at Brown University (BA, 1987) and Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1989), Ramírez Jonas, currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Over the last twenty-five years Ramírez Jonas has created works that range from large-scale public installations and monumental sculptures to intimate drawings, performances and videos. Through his practice he seeks to challenge definitions of art and the public, engineering active audience participation and exchange. For example, his 2010 Creative Time project, ‘Key to the City,’ involved 20,000 participants and centered around a key as a vehicle for exploring social contracts pertaining to trust, access, and belonging. Keys have featured repeatedly in his work as symbols of access and exclusion as well as public and private ownership. Multiples based on everyday objects such as coins also are a reoccurring motif, allowing the artist to question notions of value, circulation, and societal rituals or behaviors. He is currently an Associate Professor at Hunter College, where he has been since 2007, and is represented Galeria Nara Roesler.

Xaviera Simmons

Xaviera Simmons’ sweeping body of work includes photography, performance, choreography, video, sound, sculpture, and installation. Simmons’ interdisciplinary practice is rooted in shifting definitions of landscape and character development; art, political and social histories; and the interconnectedness of formal processes. Simmons has works currently on view in exhibitions worldwide. She is a visiting lecturer and the inaugural 2019 Solomon Fellow at Harvard University and was awarded The Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College in Spring 2020. Simmons is represented by David Castillo, Miami.

Jess Wilcox

Jess Wilcox is the Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park. Since joining Socrates in 2016, she has curated several group and solo exhibitions including ‘Chronos Cosmos: Deep Time, Open Space’; Virginia Overton: ‘Built‘; ‘Nari Ward: G.O.A.T., again‘; ‘The Socrates Annual’ exhibitions; and the Folly/Function architectural competition. From 2011-2015 she worked at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum organizing public programs and public artworks and where she co-curatedAgitprop!, an exhibition of historical and contemporary political art. She has curated shows at Abrons Art Center, ISCP and SculptureCenter, among other venues. She has a BA from Barnard College and a Master’s degree from Bard CCS.