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Celebrated artist and alumnus Gary Simmons will be the keynote speaker for SVA’s 49th commencement exercises, to be held at Radio City Music Hall at 1:00pm on Monday, May 20, 2024. SVA President David Rhodes will recognize some 1,137 degree candidates from the College’s 31 academic degree programs, including BFA, MA, MAT, MFA and MPS. Simmons graduated from SVA with a BFA in Fine Arts in 1988 and an MFA from CalArts in 1990, before going on to periodically teach at SVA until 2018.

“My time at SVA as a student, and then as a teacher, has been foundational to my experience as an artist,” Simmons said. “While I was an undergraduate, I found the mentors and community that set me on my path as an artist. Now, it’s an honor to be returning to address this year’s graduating class of artists as they embark on the next stage of their creative journey.”

One of the foremost artists of a generation that emerged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the New York-born, Los Angeles-based Simmons has achieved wide acclaim over the past three decades for his work which explores the politics of race, class and social stereotypes through painting, sculpture, sound and architectural environments. Simmons uses imagery drawn from popular culture to create works that address personal and collective memories.

Simmons has been the subject of exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the institutional survey “Gary Simmons: Public Enemy” at both the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Pérez Art Museum Miami; solo exhibitions at the Henry Museum of Art, Seattle; California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth; and Kunsthaus Zürich. Selected group exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; among others. Simmons was featured in Thelma Golden’s landmark 1994 “Black Male” exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, Franklin Sirmans′ 2014 Prospect New Orleans Biennial, and “All the World’s Futures,” curated by Okwui Enwezor for the 2015 Venice Biennale.

In 2021, Simmons was appointed a National Academician from the National Academy of Design. He is the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wein Prize, Studio Museum of Harlem; USA Gund Fellowship; Penny McCall Foundation Grant; and InterArts Grant, National Endowment for the Arts.

As the keynote speaker for SVA’s commencement exercises, Simmons will join a distinguished group of leaders in the arts, humanities and public service, including Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario, cultural icon and filmmaker John Waters, musician and poet Patti Smith, activist and author Gloria Steinem, U.S. Congressman and civil-rights hero John Lewis, cultural critic Greil Marcus, artists Laurie Anderson and Carrie Mae Weems, playwrights Edward Albee and Tony Kushner, and historian Robert A. Caro.