Biography
Born in New York. Youngest son of two Vienna-trained doctors and psychoanalysts. Father is a Freudian and mother is a renegade Freudian. Read a small collection includes three psychoanalytic articles by Charles Simonds’ mother, Dr. Anita I. Bell, and a brief overview of her career.
Psychophysiological and Psychological Observations. The Psychoanalytical Quarterly Vol.XI., No. 3 1971
1951 - 1963
1951: Runs away for the first time while on family vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Makes “Indian fire pit” in Frijoles Canyon.
1952: Makes Rabbit Reading Newspaper. Attends New Lincoln School.
1955: Spends winter vacation in Lake Placid, New York. Runs away, digs pit in snow and hides. Attends summer camp and partakes in mountain climbing and sailboat racing. Tutored by Eddie Wachenheim III in tactics and vectors, goes undefeated in every heat of every race one summer. Becomes 238th Adirondack Mountain Club “46er. ” Commences belief in Oboe Skiwatindatin, god of the wind. Shows promise in mathematics, studies symbolic logic, number theory, and statistics.
1962: Makes sculpture of a wrestler. Drops mathematics and begins study of traditional religious sculpture with Claire Fasano and Jean de Marco. Climbs in Front Range of Rocky Mountains in U.S. and Canada. Solidifies belief in Oboe.
1963: Goes to Europe with best friend and chaperon. Runs away from chaperon in the middle of the second night. Travels alone to French Riviera, Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna, Salzburg, lnnsbruck, and Zurich.
Simonds’ “Where My thoughts Come From,” 2022
Simonds recounting 1964-1969
1963 - 1967
Attends The University of California at Berkeley Meets and later marries Joanne Maude Oakes. Participates in Free Speech movement.
Works as teamster on assembly line as a relief packer of fruit trays.
Studies with James Melchert who showed that clay can be anything, even a zipper. Also studies with Harold Paris who made eroticized rubber sculpture. Discovers with Stanley Fish his new way of reading “Paradise Lost” by John Milton. Lives at 1646 Bancroft Way.
Receives Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of California, Berkeley in 1967.
1967 - 1969
Attends Rutgers University graduate school. Plays ping-pong, pours wax and water on the floor.
Writes “Masters Thesis” of 22 questions beginning with, “What is art… ?” Receives Master of Fine Arts degree.
Teaches Sculpture and Art History at Newark State College.
1971
Refurbishes a loft at 131 Chrystie Street with Gordon Matta-Clark and Harriet Korman. Works on sculpture, “Fragments of the Colossal Dream,” using hair, bodily fluids, fantasy, and traditional art historical imagery. Works in the streets of New York and environs with Gordon Matta-Clark helping each other with projects.
Creates tarot cards, some of which develop from working in clay pits of Sayreville, New Jersey. Films Birth and Landscape<->Body<->Dwelling. Meets Christo, Holly Solomon, and Jeffrey Lew.
Works at 98 Greene Street and 112 Greene Street alternative spaces with George Trakis, Suzanne Harris, Keith Sonnier, and Philip Glass. Begins migration of Little People dwellings northwards on Greene Street in New York.
Hikes in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Travels to Stonehenge, Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Vesuvius. Also travels to Jerba, Mattmatta, Dougga, Sfax, and Tozeur in Tunisia.
Leaves teaching one Friday afternoon. Rents delivery bicycle to hold clay and begins making dwellings full time in streets of New York, concentrating on The Lower East Side.
Separates from Joanne Maude Oakes. Sells 131 Chrystie Street and moves to 28th Street. Lives in the wholesale Flower District with rock bands above and below him, who were managed by his brother. Meets Lucy Lippard who asks for a tour of dwellings.
1972
Begins living with Lucy Lippard on Prince Street. Watches the evolution of art-world feminism through Lucy’s eyes. Writes “Three Peoples” a fictive ethnography and creates Life Architectures/Living Structures: Linear, Circular and Spiral Dwellings.
Becomes friends with Sol Lewitt, Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson and feels antagonism of Carl Andre and his bricks. Exchanges professional roles for a day with President of Oberlin College, Robert Fuller, as an experiment.
Summer: Sails up and down the coast of Maine with Lucy Lippard.
Does community work on The Lower East Side and becomes member of the Board of the Lower East Side Coalition for Human Housing. Creates Playlot “La Placita” with Association of Community Service Centers and the Young New Yorkers.
1974
Film of Dwellings by Rudy Burkhardt shown at the Museum of Modem Art, New York. Excavated and Inhabited Railroad Tunnel Remains constructed at Art Park, Lewiston, New York.
Awarded “Artist of the Year” by New York City Public High School teachers association.
Dwellings Winter 1974
Rudy Burkhardt
1975
Growth House is constructed at Art Park, Lewiston, New York. Invited to take part in the Whitney Biennial. Refuses to put work in Museum but builds a dwelling in the street indicated by a sign in the museum.
Cries over Smithson’s death while holding small spiral shells in mud flats in Maine (where he had visited). Has first one-person exhibition in Paris curated by Daniel Abadie at the Centre National d’Art Contemporain.
Works in the streets of Belleville making dwellings. Meets Josefa, who is 10 years old and believes in “little people” of her own and that food turns to poison in their mouths if they don’t share it.
“Three Peoples” is published by Ida Gianelli coinciding with an exhibition at Samangallery, Genoa. Works in streets of port area of Genoa making dwellings.
1976
Invited by Howardena Pindell for “Projects” series at the Museum of Modem Art, New York where he creates Picaresque Landscape, later exhibited at the Tompkins Square Library on the Lower East Side. Proposal for Stanley Tankel Memorial Hanging Gardens.
Invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale. Works in the streets of Venice.
Creates a Linear People Dwelling at The American Museum of Natural History, New York as part of Earth Day Festival.
1977
Participates in a housing project called City Project Cleveland.
One-person exhibition entitled, “Temenos” at the Albright Knox Museum, Buffalo.
Participates in Documenta 6.
Goes to Berlin for one year with DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschsdienst). Produces Circles and Towers Growing series. Meets Barbara Meller. Exhibits in Biennial at Whitney Museum.
Click to read catalog
1978
“Floating Cities and other Architectures” exhibited at Westfalischer Kunstverein, Munster, curated by Herbert Molderings. Floating Cities Page.
Exhibition travels to Bonner Kunstverein. Article “Kunst als sozialer Process” published in Kunstforum International, March 1978.
Visits Barbara Meller in Leningrad. Jurgen Schweinebraden organizes a clandestine individual exhibition in East Berlin. In 2022 Simonds learns that a Stasi file was opened on him in at this time.
Birthscape is constructed for the exhibition “Door beeldhouwers gemaakt” (Made By Sculptors) at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Work shares room with Gordon Matta-Clark’s and Simonds dedicates work to him upon learning of his death.
Travels to Orkneys and Isle of Skye, Scotland. Hikes in Dolomites
1978
“Cracking” a fiction by Lucy Lippard based on Simonds’ work is published by Walter Konig, Cologne. It is used as a catalogue for Circles and Towers Growing exhibition at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and Nationalegalerie in Berlin. Meets Franz Meyer, future father in law, when exhibiting at Documenta 6.
Harry Torczyner campaigns as first “surrealist” candidate for New York State congress and rents Times Square Billboard, without Simonds’ knowledge, to claim that ” Charles Simonds endorses Harry Torczyner for congress.”
1980
“Instant House,” created in Iowa. Inflated spiral structure of cloth is sprayed with water and freezes overnight.
Moves to loft on 22nd Street, New York. Camps out in New Mexico desert to see flora bloom.
Invited to participate in the Rosc exhibition and builds dwellings in the streets of Dublin. Goes to China with Lucy Lippard, Sol Lewitt, Dorothy Lichtenstein and others. Works in streets of Shanghai and Guillin.
1981
Constructs permanent installations of dwellings at the Whitney Museum, New York, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Begins cutting niches for dwellings as opposed to working with already existing spaces. Invited by Hans Haacke to teach advanced sculpture at Cooper Union, New York.
First retrospective is organized by John Hallmark Neff, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Catalogue contains essays by John Neff, John Beardsley, and Daniel Abadie.
Exhibition travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Fort Worth Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston,; Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona; Brooks Memorial Art Museum, Memphis, Tennessee and concludes at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Visits Glomar Challenger oil platform in Gulf of Mexico.
Cross country skies in Banff and Yellowstone National Parks. Canoes boundary waters of Minnesota and watches Northern lights.Visits Death Valley.
Invited to make dwellings for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Spends time working in the streets of Jerusalem.
1982: Meets Bella Meyer whom he marries in 1985.
1983: Installs Age in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum.
Rents “bare boat” and sails the Virgin Islands, Caribbean.
Work appears on cover of Sotheby’s auction catalogue.
Visits Meyer Shapiro and wife Lillian on West 4th Street for “teas.” Discusses political and social role of artist, streets of Lower East Side, the scatological in Romanesque sculpture capitals along with Bella Meyer, reincarnation, resurrection and eschatological issues in art and life. Later receives the tea set from Shapiros as a wedding present.
1984: “House Plants and Rocks” exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. Read Catalog
Visits Marc Chagall, future grandfather in law, at Les Collines, St. Paul de Vence.
Visits Jacqueline Picasso at Mougins.
1985 -1994
1985: Exhibition “The Three Trees” at Architekturmuseum, Basel, Switzerland.
Makes a pilgrimage to the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland during an ice storm. Informed buildings are closed for a conference, he is denied entry to “use facilities.”
1986: Exhibition at Galerie Lelong, Paris. Invited to be a Resident at the American Academy in Rome.
1987: Exhibition at Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Large scale “cracked” fired tile floor and walls of progressively changing sizes of bricks exhibited as components of a future planned house Simonds wants to build. Daughter Lia is born.
1988: Exhibition at Corcoran Gallery, Washington D. C. Refuge model for permanent project for Seoul Korea Olympics and one “room” of project created full scale. Travels to Seoul to construct Refuge in Olympic Park.
1989: Son Timothy is born.
Exhibits at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in 1989, 1992, and 1993.
1991: Exhibits installations at Baudoin Lebon Gallery in Paris.
1994: Retrospective exhibition organized by Tom Messer and curated by Daniel Abadie. Inaugurated at “La Caixa” in Barcelona and then presented at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume.
Cast of Mother holding hands of her grandchildren, Lia and Timothy, 1996
1995 – 2002
1995: Works with patients at Centre d’Etude de l’Expression, Clinique des Maladies Mentales et de l’Encephale, Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne, Paris on communal sculpture. Begins working at Manufacturer Nationale de Sevres . Creates “Tumbleweed” which is exhibited in retrospective exhibition at Je de Paume.
1996: Lectures at Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne to therapists on work with patients the previous year. Read: “Earth and Sanity/Terre et Sante,” International Journal of Art Therapy 1 (1997).
Makes cast of Mother holding hands of her grandchildren, Lia and Timothy, two days before she dies.
1997: Works on transforming grotto for Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.
1998: Exhibition “Houseplants” at the Joseph Helman Gallery, New York.
1999: Exhibition “Charles Simonds” at the Denver Art Museum, Colorado.
2001: Exhibition Is Was, at the Joseph Helman Gallery, New York.
2002: Invited to Valencia to consider doing retrospective exhibition at IVAM.
Wanders the streets of Valencia during “La Crema,” last evening of the Fallas festival. Becomes honorary “Fallero” for Na Jordana Barrio, and ends evening receiving a welcoming kiss from Rita Barbara Nolla, mayor, at Ayuntamiento (town hall) while watching burning of largest Fallas Statue.
2003: Retrospective exhibition at IVAM Simonds travels to Asturias, Galicia, Zaragoza, Cordoba, Bilbao in Spain.
2004: Goes to India with John Beardsley.
2007: Becomes second American since 1492 to carry the Virgin for Cofradia de la Santa Vera Cruz Bilbao in Semana Santa procession. Travels to Sevilla for Semana Santa.
2009: Exhibition LandscapeBodyDwelling at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.
2011: Book LandscapeBodyDwelling published. Read Catalog
2011: Sleeps on sailboat Maltese Falcon.
Sails on Sumerun.
Exhibition at Knoedler Gallery. It becomes swan song exhibition for the gallery which closes amidst a scandal and lawsuit originated four years previously about questionable authenticity and provenance of art works sold by former gallery director. Receives letter from Knoedler.
2012: Goes to Metropolitan Opera with Eric Kandel, Walter Gilbert and Celia Stone.
2013: Lectures at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, at the invitation of Stephanie Weber for the “Modern Mondays” series.
2014: “ Lectures at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University”
Charles Simonds, Barbara Muelhens, Walter Gilbert, Herbert Molderings and Timothy Simonds with “Floating Cities” in Siegen Germany at opening of “Was Modelle Konnen” exhibition in 2014
2016: Travels throughout southern India. Creates Dwellings with school children at G.H.P.S. Mulenahally Colony, Hassan Distict School, Karnataka, India.
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University exhibits “Mental Earth” and holds a symposium about Simonds’ work, entitled: “Dwellings: Charles Simonds and 1970s” New York. Organized by Jules Pelta-Feldman, participants include Richard Shiff, in dialogue with Simonds, Lucy Lippard, Ksenia Soboleva, Martin Hartung, Patterson Sims, Chris Lyon and Herbert Molderings, among others.
Simonds in conversation with Richard Shiff
Symposium Talks
Participates as part of a panel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, entitled “Big Questions about Small Things, Minaturization in the Arts of Africa, Ocenia and the Americas” in conjunction with the exhibition “Design for Eternity” curated by Joanne Pillsbury at the museum. Panelists include curators Yaelle Biro, Maia Nuku, Joanne Pillsbury and Andrew Hamilton
“Cracking” published in English. Edition by Verlag Der Buchhandlung, Walther Konig, Koln, 2016
2016 – 2017: “Dwelling Munich” A citywide Art in Public Space project sponsored by the Municipal Department of Art and Culture of the City of Munich including an exhibition at the Kunstraum. Catalogue edited by Beate Engl, Luise Horn and Stephanie Weber, with an essay by Petra Lange-Berndt and a conversation between Stephanie Weber and Charles Simonds, Kunstraum München, Munich 2017.
Simonds and children from different neighborhoods in Munich created dwellings throughout the city. Curated by Beate Engl, Luise Horn and Stephanie Weber. Participants included students of the Gisela-Gymnasium, the Willy- Brandt-Gesamtschule, Erasmus students of the Munich Tecnical University, students of the Wittelsbach Gymnasium and children at the Heckscher Clinic for Child and Youth Psychiatry.
2017: “I was…” a children’s book Simonds wrote for the students and teachers at the Mulenahally School in Hassan, India is published.
2018:
Rolls out impressions of Sumerian cylinder seals with Sidney Babcock.
Makes memento “yearbook” for the students at Mulenahalli School in India. Lectures at Bangalore International Center and has Q & A with Suresh Jairam.
2019: April 4th, United Nations sponsors a “Floating Cities” project, 47 years after Simonds’ original proposal. Link for United Nations plans and Simonds’s original proposal: FLOATING CITIES
Sails in Venice, Italy as part of Melissa McGill’s “Red Regatta. Sails in the Northern part of Lake Garda, Italy. Alessandro Bubola, Fabrizio Pegoraro, Marcella Ferrari and Arturo Calce sailing in Red Regatta.
2022: Becomes honoree of Center of Book Arts as “Artist of the Year “ for his artist’s books.
2024 : “Last sail of Summer” with Lucy Lippard, Sagadahoc Bay, Maine.
2025
Sothebys takes over preservation of Whitney’s Breuer Dwelling. Christopher Alessandrini article “The Enchanted Worlds of Charles Simonds” in Sotheby’s Magazine.
David Dixon article “The Little People Don’t Care” published in Brooklyn Rail.
