Adam Simon's work embodies the post-structuralist view that all art is inherently representational and laden with cultural meaning, even when it appears abstract. His paintings engage with how images function as signs within broader visual communication and meaning-making systems. Even when his paintings appear abstract initially, they incorporate silhouettes, logos, or other identifiable forms. These he overlaid, juxtaposed, or cropped. This use of stock photography, clip art, and corporate logos as source material reflects his interest in appropriation, the blurring of high and low culture, and the ready-made. Meanwhile, using stencils, rollers, and repetition, Simon implicitly and critically questioned the Modernist notions of originality, intentionality, and authenticity. 

 

​​When I first saw Simon's most recent paintings, I thought they lacked his usual critical edge – there was none of the tension between cognition and recognition that had played a central role in his previous paintings. These works are simpler, more minimal. The words that initially came to mind were "academic," "matter of fact," and “banal.” Something was missing — they didn't seem to do much conceptually. These paintings consisted of an erratic and dissociative, asymmetrical composition of two or more elements that appeared to be fragments either derived from some larger images or decorative motifs. While I know their source are the corporate logos and the photo images that played a role in his earlier works, in these paintings Simon strategically had rendered these references ambiguously inconsequential. Rather than directly reproducing found imagery, Simon now uses it as a starting point for more intuitive acts. This allows him to infuse the work with personal aesthetic choices while still maintaining a connection to a critique of representation. In the fragments he now presents, there is just enough visual information for the cognoscente to retrieve some degree of their cultural references. But even with this, the images do not seem relational; their pairings and placement seem arbitrary or formal - there is no underlying narrative to be had. As a result, much like a Rorschach test, these paintings seem to be meant to provoke associations and speculation. 

 

Technique-wise, Simon continues to stencil his images into his painting using a roller; the results are opaque, hard-edge, silhouetted forms that are embedded into what tend to be mostly flatly painted, muted monochrome grounds. From one painting to the next, this remains consistent, yet despite this, these paintings do not appear to be the product of a system nor derived from an ideal model. Instead, each composition is presented as a unique solution to some unarticulated problem. My initial impulse was to write off Simon's endeavors as merely decorative or formal– but given the subtle evidence of the consideration, forethought, and innuendos of self-criticality that he has put into their making them decidedly vague; I found myself obliged to try to make sense of them rather than dismiss them out of hand. 

 

Given the workmanlike manner of their execution, it is clear they are neither the production of an aloof slacker nor the work of an artisan who cares only about their craft. Similarly, these works are not an exercise in aesthetics - e.g., a striving for the beautiful - in that the results are neither harmonious nor discordant. Though we may prefer one over the other, there is no basis for such a judgment other than our subjectivity - in which case we are merely comparing our standards and comprehension of what Simon is doing with his own, in which case all we have to work with here is what the paintings are themselves evidence of. Don't get me wrong; none of this is necessarily bad; it was just unexpected coming from an artist as conceptual as Simon. Yet, it is here, in what these works lack, that I discovered what I now think is both their subject and content. In promoting uncertainty, Simon's works are antithetical to most recent paintings, which tend to be mere signifiers of some external narrative or concept. In this resistance to semiotics and analogy, we find Simon's criticality and perhaps the politics (the economy of values) of his recent works. Here, I realized the affinity between these paintings and those of David Diao, who is also engaged with how images function as signs and symbols within the broader visual culture that shapes our social aesthetic. In the current works, Simon continues to draw from the same sources but employs a different approach. He now fragments and reconfigures these images to such an extent that they, in most cases, become abstract forms, divorced from their original referent. The resulting paintings read more as an index of the essential elements of the painting itself: color, surface, form, composition, and the artist's determinations, which gives each painting its particular character. What makes these paintings different from Simon's previous works is that with these works, he has attempted to strip his images of their meaning to create new formal and aesthetic relationships. Consequently, these paintings do not merely comment on the state of painting but seek to strike a balance between critique and aesthetics. 

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Setting such a baseline may seem odd in this day and age, yet it seems to be necessary as narratives and representations replace the experiential. Seemingly, Simon would draw us back to a state that requires a deeper speculative engagement with the tangible rather than its image. By emphasizing the indeterminacy of his forms, these paintings, without saying so, encourage us to reconnect our sensory perceptions to our material reality rather than its symbolic representation. In this, we may view Simon's pursuit not as some purist endeavor but as a house cleaning of his subjectivity. This is a fairly traditional ideal, but it now and then has to be revised and refreshed because, without its constant renewal, our experiences come to be displaced by signs and symbols, making the actual increasingly more inaccessible. 

 

By incorporating both conceptual rigor and subjective expression, Simon is trying to return to a more nuanced and multifaceted painting practice. This suggests a desire to create work that can operate on multiple levels - formal, conceptual, and aesthetic. In doing so, he seems to believe he can transcend the binary between critique and subjectivity. Given this premise, one may view the current work as Simon attempting to mark off a position that is based on what might be considered minor discourses. The idea of "minor," as used here, refers to those forms of cultural production that operate within the dominant framework but subvert it by introducing new, often marginalized perspectives or aspirations. 

 

This notion of minor discourse articulated by the French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari aligns with their notion that significant change can be achieved by reordering existing expectations and their logic rather than overthrowing them. In Simon's case, he seems to be weaning himself off of the dominant linguistic/semiotic model of painting as something to be read primarily in accord with some external text or intentionality. Instead, he offers a phenomenological approach where the materiality of the painting and the discernible decision of its maker become the source of experience and meaning. This positions Simon's work as a counterpoint to prevailing modes of engagement that rely on predetermined conceptual frameworks, easy categorization, and conventions. This is not immediately apparent because Simon avoids the didacticism often linked with such critiques. This allows his paintings to exist as entities in their own right rather than merely symbolically resisting language. Through this evolution, Simon seeks to develop a richer, more traditional practice that balances critique with subjective expression, offering a nuanced embodiment of the duality of the signifier as both an abstract form and a representational mode.