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HATE Jerry Simpson at Zip 37 through November 11, 2001.
Renna Shesso, GO GO Magazine
Picture conveyor belts delivering people into the gaping maw of a perpetually hungry war-beast. Boxes of small humans, their arms raised in alarm, are already inside the huge mouth and more people-packed boxes rest on the floor, waiting to be fed into this monster. Compounding the hellish imagery, a faint burnt smell infuses the area.
This is "HATE" a new installation piece by Jerry Simpson. An habitual alley-shopper and collector of weird shit. Simpson has combined found material to create this nightmarish vision, a vision that`s simple in its imagery yet viscerally effective for the viewer.
Key components of this life-gobbling machine are a couple pieces of vintage office equiment, the "Pro-Technic Ediphones." This is what hi-tech looked like circa 1930, odd contraptions with art-deco microphones leading into podium-style boxes that somehow converted spoken words to written text via an assortment of needles and knobs. Add generators, wires and wheels, and these mysterious turn sinister.
Work-lights suspended over the microphones add to a sense of evil efficiency. Leading away from the Ediphones toward the giant mouth, Simpson has positioned sections of what I call conveyor belts, although they are actually lots of little wheels along narrow metal ramps, simple utilitarian equipment used for unloading trucks. The sections Simpson has included are well worn, a little rusty, which also has sinister connotations in this context.
The tiny people are everwhere. Simpson jigsawed about fifty of them out of wood, so they are really just thick silhouettes. Their arms are usually raised and sometimes the legs are at awkward angles. Odd how much a human silhouette can convey; these could be trying to fend off danger or could be prone on the ground with police tape around them.
The ones along the rolling conveyor are wedged in between the wheels, sometimes upright, sometimes feet up, looking plenty distressed and chaotic. All are sightly charred (Simpson intentionally burned parts of the wood) creating a powerful sensory undercurrent. After thousands of years of self-preservation training, we humans don`t respond positively to most smells associated with fire.
The focal point of all these malignant components is that mouth. At least six feet wide and several feet high, with a pinkish interior and double rows of snaggled fangs up and down, this devouring cave holds dozens of small charred humans. The inside of this mouth-cavern in lined with current newspaper, plenty of death and destruction, Afghanistan and anthrax. But the clippings could just as well have shown Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge or the Crusaders, the Inquisition or Attila. The occasions change, but the mouth`s appetite for human life remains horribly consistent and insatiable.
To his credit, Simpson includes no explanatory material with Hate, nothing pro or con no flag-waving. The powerful imagery works fine without it and we can each supply our own personalizing interpretations. For me, the title does the job. Wars aren`t the creation of an angry god, they`re fueled by a human emotion, and human life provides the fuel. Zip 37 is one of Denver`s smaller gallery spaces, but the scale of this installation loses all sense of the front room`s normal dimensions. The windows are blocked to control the level of light, and access to the back room is altered by walls of black plastic sheeting that extend to the huge piece`s sides as well as along the ceiling. The jagged sections overhead certainly heighten the anxiety level.
Jerry Simpson put most of this piece together within the two weeks prior to its opening night. Around the corner from it are earlier Simpson works with Halloween themes. He worked for many years as an illustrator and graphic designer and all the communicative and compositional skills he honed in the commercial field are still being put to good use. He`s best known for his bizarre contraptions and creatures, all built from America`s wealth of cast-off detritus.
There`s plenty more here, most of it playful, lots of it overtly sexy and all of it based on found materials. Simpson has occasionally mentored classes of young art students, leading them through alleys to find alternative art supplies. We should all have such great adventures. His own work is brilliant. Don`t let the show`s title put you off. Jerry Simpson is a Denver art treasure.
Renna Shesso, GO GO Magazine |
