Gary Simmons and Jazmyn Scott in Dialogue

Join artist Gary Simmons and LANGSTON Program Manager Jazmyn Scott for a conversation about the many avenues in which their passions for music (of Seattle and beyond) sit at the center of their creative and community practices. Framed by Gary Simmons: The Engine Room, on view now at the Henry, their dialogue will expand upon the intersections of visual art, music histories, and community identity, thinking through how personal memory and social nostalgia inspire their ongoing artistic and cultural commitments. Henry Director of Curatorial Affairs Shamim M. Momin will introduce Simmons and Scott, sharing images from the exhibition to set the stage for the conversation. 

The work of Gary Simmons (b. 1964, New York, NY) explores racial, social, and cultural politics, and examines the ways in which we attempt to reconstruct the past via personal and collective memory. Simmons earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York and a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. He is the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wein Prize, Studio Museum in Harlem; USA Gund Fellowship; Penny McCall Foundation Grant; and Interarts Grant, National Endowment for the Arts. Simmons has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Perez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Modern Art of Fort Worth; and Kunsthaus Zürich; as well as myriad group exhibitions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others.

Jazmyn Scott is the Program Manager of LANGSTON, Seattle’s hub for Black arts and culture; co-founder of 50 Next: Seattle Hip-Hop Worldwide, a digital “time capsule” highlighting Seattle and Northwest Hip-Hop; and co-curator of The Legacy of Seattle Hip-Hop exhibit at the Museum of History & Industry, which won the 2016 American Association for State & Local History (AASLH) Leadership in History award.