SEATTLE—The Henry Art Gallery is proud to announce the recent acquisition of Beverly Semmes’ seminal work, Six Silvers. Created in the 1990s, the suite of dresses, along with four new paintings by the artist, will be on view at the Henry from June 22 to October 13, 2019.
Beverly Semmes (U.S., born 1958) is a sculptor whose practice also incorporates painting, photography, and performance. These complementary elements adhere in surprising ways, probing the paradoxes and complexities of the female body and its representation. The artist became known for her large-scale dress sculptures in the early 1990s. These oversized articles of clothing, primarily dresses, are typically altered by elongating the arms and hemming the length to extend to the floor, often filling the entire gallery. Six Silvers, the suite of dresses included in the exhibition, is a characteristic example of those works—the physical body absent, but the suggestion of presence enormous.
Also on view will be a group of four new paintings created expressly for the exhibition. Drawn from the artist’s ongoing Feminist Responsibility Project (FRP), where she transforms pornographic images with pools of color, the Red Runway paintings are variations on a single image from a topless fashion show. Figures function as a “receiving line” for the “main act,” the characters of Six Silvers, the artist explains. Flanking the silvery group, the Red Runway women present frontally, moving towards the viewer in solidarity with the six forms they surround.
Semmes’ work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art PS1, New York City; Camden Art Centre, London; and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; among others. Her work is included in numerous museum collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the Denver Art Museum; and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. She has been featured in The New York Times, ARTNews, The New Yorker, Art in America, and many other publications. She received her BA and BFA from the Boston Museum School, Tufts University (1982) and her MFA from the Yale University School of Art (1987). Born in Washington, D.C., Semmes currently resides in New York City.
Beverly Semmes is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Senior Curator. The exhibition is made possible through a generous gift of art from the Microsoft Art Collection.