Petrichor: a distinctive, earthy, usually pleasant odor that is associated with rainfall especially when following a warm, dry period and that arises from a combination of volatile plant oils and geosmin released from the soil into the air and by ozone carried by downdrafts
The exhibition Petrichor marks a turn for Xaviera Simmons that is actually part of a rhythm in her workthat has vacillated throughout her career between art historical adherence strident activism and a more felt system of thought. Simmons’ broad and diverse practice—sculpture, language, photography, installation, painting, and researched deep dives into specific histories—has often engaged the world with a sense of urgency. Collectively these works were at times (to reference the poet Frank O’Hare) “meditations in an emergency”. Interestingly, her work remains in the realm of meditation, but it has now shifted again toward a different, more reflective tenor.
Petrichor is an installation of two large paintings as language environments and four large-scale photographs. It seemingly turns away from the sociopolitical clamor that usurps our collective moment toward an abiding curiosity for the wonders of the physical universe and our place within it.
The language works—the smaller, Wintering, and the larger, Petrichor—sit one in front of the other, extolling a deeper awareness of the most minute aspects of the reader’s (and, of course, the writer’s) neurological and autonomic systems. They ponder the wonder of our corporeal vessels and of the physical world around us and ultimately acknowledge the most distant phenomenological occurrences of the cosmos towards personal experiences of scale, mark, paint and color. For Simmons, the scale and the luxurious materiality of the larger language paintings propel this work further into the realm of a knowledge that emanates from the body.
Wintering, acting as a liminal device into Petrichor, focuses on the body as a container of electricity and rhythm. Wintering is the incubation period, a time when shedding and introspection occurs. It parses the idea of breathing as both a noun (the volumes of air that the body takes in and expels) and as a verb (the act of respiration with all its inherent rhythms and, importantly, pauses). In turn, it delves into the effect that the rhythm of breath has on the more intricate neurological bodily systems. It brings to the fore thoughts how these systems operate together both in our bodies and in our consciousness.
As Wintering transitions into Petrichor, Simmons leaps both in scale and in ideation to the cosmos, always conscious of the relationship between the systems intrinsic in the body and those inherent to the earth and the Universe.
Inserted between these two painting/language works, are four new large photographs that explore the very nature of discovery that drives the thoughts that are foundational to both Wintering and Petrichor. While Simmons acts as the actor/sitter/maker in all four images, her face is obscured, making them portraits of everyone’s experience of discovery. In each is a tableau that recounts the gathering of ideas that ties them indelibly to the notions held in the literary space of painting / language installations. These photographs are a stream off of a larger body of work called the Sundown Series that has as its impetus contemporary art criticism over the last 50 years.
The exhibition Petrichor is akin to the earlier work in that it is a reaction to our experience of the world. It still engages the viewer in a space beyond the speculation of coded behavior to create a quasi-literary space that details history, mythology, archival materials, and Simmons’ own personal thoughts and impressions. It still endeavors to enact change and reform through awareness. It differs from the earlier work in that it attempts to move out from under the exhausting weight of our shared daily tumult. Instead, it is an embrace of our mutual experience of a Universe that is simultaneously deeply ordered and entropic.
