Exhibition - Arthur Simms: Icema's World

About the Event

Arthur Simms’ Icema’s World (2013–2023) is a suite of seventeen sculptures and drawings. In Icema’s World, a trove of the matriarch’s ephemera mingles with objects and documents of Simms’ own, united by the artist’s signature method of bound assemblage. Like her son, Icema threw little away. She became a prolific writer of letters during her initial separation from her family, a practice she maintained throughout her life. Simms, always mindful of the personal provenance of his found objects, portrays his mother metonymically through these missives and other of her belongings. In Icema’s Chair, Simms uses wire to fasten a stack of items which, together and in sequence, narrate Icema’s immigration story. As is frequent in Simms’ sculpture, wheels form the foundation for this vertical assemblage, defying the site specificity of the pedestal (and with it, the vestigial insinuations of property that sculpture inherited from the monument). Particularly in Icema’s Chair, however, wheels also telegraph the itineracy of expatriation. Atop this precarious base is Icema’s suitcase, which in turn supports a child’s chair fastened by a rigorous network of wires. Implicit in this arrangement is Icema’s endurance of uncertainty to ensure her family’s stability. Simms crowns the sculpture with a regal arrangement of feathers, a tribute to her sacrifice and acknowledgement of her departure from earthly life.

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