John Simmons : And then there's love Curated by Karon Davis

 Wilding Cran Gallery is pleased to present And then there's love, an exhibition of John Simmons' photographs documenting Black love, community, and the importance of locating joy in our day-to-day lives, curated by Karon Davis.

Since the mid-1960s, photographer John Simmons has travelled the country covering everything from Black Panther Party meetings and the 1968 Democratic National Convention, to snapshots of the everyday lives of the American people. The exhibition of And then there's love unites Simmons' iconic photographs with selected collages as mediums for chronicling Black community, culture, and authenticity. Inspired by the legacy of pioneers such as Gordon Parks and Roy DeCarava, Simmons sets out to capture the challenges and complexities woven into the fabric of humanity.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Simmons recalls the rarity of positive images of Black people throughout popular culture and mainstream media. The exhibition of And then there's love, aims to impart sincerity through images of family and friendship, public and private life, revelry and reverie. Immediately upon entering the gallery space, the viewer locks eyes with one of the most vulnerable and striking images of the exhibition: a little girl eating chocolate ice cream, with a balloon wrapped around her fingers, her eyes fixed on the lens of the camera in front of her. Taken in 1967, Girl Eating Ice Cream has been resized, amplified, and applied to the gallery wall in vinyl. All around her, each accompanying photograph lends itself to Simmons' narrative of the miraculous in the mundane. And, while it is easy to place certain subjects into historical time-frames (such as Angela Davis, Nina Simone, and Kathleen Cleaver), the exhibition holds an aura of timelessness, with the ability to lend itself to any era. 

Unlike the selection of photographs documenting Black life in the 1960s and 1970s, the works on paper exemplify one of Simmons' more recent bodies of work. Drawing inspiration from current events, the artist sees his collages as documentaries, political and social narratives punctuated with striking pockets of hope. The selection of collages exhibited within And then there's love unite historical imagery, newspaper headlines, hand-painted accents, and vibrant backdrops. Black and white melds with color, as desolate cityscapes and American flags meet starry skies and beaming rays of sun. These elements serve to unveil the juxtaposition of turmoil and tenderness, isolation and interconnectedness, despair and hope. While each collage tells its own story, when viewed together, the works serve as puzzle pieces, as chapters in the archive of human history and reckoning. When viewed in context with the selected photographs, Simmons' collages conjure visions of collective violence and grief in coexistence with the raw beauty of love and community. 

In the tumultuous environment of our world, it is easy to lose sight of the beauty in small moments, to fall out of rhythm with where we all fit into the celebration of life. For John Simmons, the camera has the ability to memorialize this complex emotional space, to eternalize the ever too brief spurts of joy, so that we may return to them, so that they may remind us of our totality. Through this exhibition of photographs and works on paper, And then there's love seeks to impart the notion that no matter where we are from, or what we are living through, we will always have family and friendship, music and dance, apartment stoops and country roads, and even the occasional scoop of chocolate ice cream.