Verbal Description: Counterculture, 2022

Narrator: The installation of Counterculture on view at the Whitney is five of the original twelve large scale figurative works made of cast cement by Santa Clara Pueblo artist Rose B. Simpson. Each sculpture is reminiscent of the human form, but well beyond life-size, measuring over 10 feet in height, 2 feet in width and less than 1 foot in depth.

The faces of the figures are wide and round, with sculpted lips and noses protruding outward from the face. Where the eyes would be are almond shaped holes, which have been created by drilling all the way through the figures’ faces; Simpson has noted these holes allow the figure to “stand as a witness and as a voice and as a way to bring consciousness to the stories of the past and the beings of all kinds”. Each neck is adorned with a necklace of handcrafted clay beads, leading into smooth, armless torsos and legs, with no indications of any anatomy. The figures do not have any feet. Each figure has no definitive gender. Simpson said about this gender-neutral presentation:

Rose B. Simpson: Most of my work is a self-portrait of sorts. As someone who is Two-Spirit or has always struggled with gender and trying to understand it, I feel like my story is best told from my own bodily experience. So I'm making myself in a sense, and this is how we empathize in the world, is when we see ourselves in something else.

Narrator: While the figures are cast in cement, they have each been dyed a different warm, earthy tone, inspired by the colors of the earth, ground, and dirt that the artist is surrounded by in her native Southwest, as well as the clay that she typically works with. This choice in coloring was also partially inspired by the figures’ placement on the east coast; in the Southwest, where the landscape is characterized as earthy and warm, the figures could almost disappear into the landscape. However, on the east coast, the warm, earthy tones contrast intensely with the blues and grays of the landscape and city. In addition, you may be able to note fingerprints in the clay beads, relics of birds using the sculptures as a resting place, rust, or moss across the installation. These signifiers of interaction with the landscape and the artist are encouraged by Simpson, as they push the viewer to notice “how place begins to affect everything that we're trying to control.” With Counterculture, Simpson aims to foreground our collaboration with nature, rather than our dominion over it.