Walking through his retrospective with Frye Deputy Director Scott Lawrimore on Saturday, Seattle artist Buster Simpson paused in front of a pair of short video clips. The one on the left shows Simpson dropping a great lump of limestone into the headwaters of the Hudson River in New York. On the right, a younger Simpson hurls a smaller piece of the stone toward the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center. Simpson explained that the performances show the two sides of his artistic persona: the mender and the meddler.
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Buster Simpson, Hudson River Purge, 1991. Color still from a video of the performance. Courtesy of the artist.
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Buster Simpson, Projecting Limestone Purge, 1983. Black-and-white still from a video of the performance, Agitprop, Lower Manhattan, New York.
The word “purge” figures in the titles of both performances, but in another sense the works are opposites, as Simpson suggests. Hudson River Headwater Purge prescribes a remedy. Simpson’s process of making is one of addition and environmental restoration, as his “River Rolaids” sweeten the polluted water. Projecting Limestone Purge is its counterpart, proposing healing through destruction and elimination of the Manhattan towers that appear like an extraterrestrial invasion in a rocky classical landscape. Here, Simpson is David from the Old Testament, a wiry but determined protagonist symbolically taking on the Goliath of global capitalism and environmental degradation with his modest slingshot. He’s continued to chip away at these same forces throughout his long career, all the while adding to and shaping Seattle’s community-focused and environmentally conscious artistic identity.
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Buster Simpson, Sling from Projecting Limestone Purge, 1983/2013. Rubber inner tube, sashcord, limestone.
Simpson is great with language, humor, and connecting conceptual art ideas to environmental ends. In short, there’s lots to like about this two-headed figure and the Frye’s thoughtful portrait of him and his work.
The exhibition BUSTER SIMPSON//SURVEYOR remains up at the Frye Art Museum through October 13, 2013.
