Read Catalog - Charles Simonds

of friends and critics, Simonds traveled widely as a visiting artist or participant
in group exhibitions. Since the mid-1970S he has been included in most of
the major international and national invitational exhibitions and his works
have entered the permanent collections of museums here and abroad. He
has recently started working at a new studio on East 22nd Street and still
conducts his affairs without a gallery or agent. As this catalogue goes to press,
he is exploring the possibilities of a visionary, environmental museum of
natural history.
This book which accompanies the exhibition is an effort to begin to assemble
the photographs and texts which will make it somewhat easier for future
authors to deal with the diversity of Simonds's work, most of which has not
even been photographed or otherwise documented. (There are also various
kinds of private works which he makes for himself and friends which have
not been considered here.) The photographs are arranged according to
Simonds's categories and the section headings are based upon his written
descriptions. The categories are not mutually exclusive; it would have been
equally possible to group certain projects together as "Cosmological" and
"Organic Architectures," an option which the artist n1ay exercise in the
future.
The three essays reflect the variety of responses that Sin1onds's Little People
have elicited over the last decade. Simonds's work first appeared in the
charged, politicized context of the early I97os, which often focused upon
the implications of his street works with regard to the conventions of the
New York art world. Subsequent critiques questioned the apparent contradictions
of his also making unique, salable works. John Beardsley's essay
focuses on the question of the public works, while Daniel Abadie's evokes
the myriad associations of fantasy and reality that we encounter through the
range of Simonds's activities as an artist. The third essay alternates between
a reading of the sculptures as objects and an introduction to some of the
diverse ideas which contribute to their meaning; the notes can be read separately
as suggestions for further exploration. The Com1nentaries are a personal
tour of Circles and Towers Growing, again concentrating on the presence
of the sculptures themselves in the exhibition. Reprinted in its entirety
is Simonds's text Three Peoples, which relates the histories and beliefs of the
Little People.
Since the Fall of 1979 when arrangements for the first United States showing
of Charles Simonds's Circles and Towers Growing were initiated, this exhibition
and book have required the ongoing efforts of the entire staff of the
Museum of Contemporary Art. I would like particularly to acknowledge the
assistance of Robert Tilendis, Mary Jane Jacob, Mary Braun, Lynne Warren,
and Ted Stanuga, who have made it possible for me to develop the exhibition
in the midst of other responsibilities. Terry Ann R. Neff, editor of the catalogue,
and Michael Glass, designer, are to be thanked for organizing the written
and visual information to reflect as much as possible the flow, both formal
and conceptual, of the artist's interconnected works. Many of these are not
documented or are referred to in relatively inaccessible local newspapers or
foreign periodicals. The selected bibliography was drawn in part from the
artist's own files; the initial ordering and listing of the material was facilitated
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