John Sims

R.I.P. John Sims

The Detroit artist and activist led an immense and inspired life

BY OMO MISHA

Pure genius is not easy. It enters the room with a bang and does not leave quietly. It is every color of the spectrum, electricity and sparkle, yet blunt, like a mallet, boisterous with prickly shards, smoothing, like butter on a burn, charming and loud. It sweeps you into its orbit, sculpting and sharpening your edges. It is exhausting and energizing at once, and you are better, stronger, brighter for having walked into its ame

From coast to coast and across seas, no one will deny that John Sims was all these things. John Sims was a Detroitbred, pure, unbridled genius.

On Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022, the world lost a brilliant human being. Born in 1968, Sims grew up on the city’s west side. He attended Detroit public schools and graduated from Renaissance High School in 1986. In a 2017 M etro Times interview he described his younger self as a “big science fair geek” and recounted an early interest in art, mathematics, and politics, as well as attending a vocational school located right behind his high school. He went on to graduate from Antioch College, where he would begin transforming these interests into his life’s work — turning big ideas into even bigger ventures all over the world.

Returning to Antioch as special assistant to the dean of faculty, Sims started out by creating and organizing robust cultural programming that took a diverse group of students to the South to learn about the African American experience. He additionally founded African American Cultural Week (AACW), which evolved into the AACW Blues and Gospel Fest and has gone on to celebrate more than 25 years as an annual event in Ohio.

Sims made Sarasota, Florida, his home when he signed on as coordinator of mathematics at the Ringling College of Art & Design. There, he developed a visual mathematics curriculum where students were taught to communicate ideas of quantity, relationship, symmetry, and pattern through art and design, and curated more than 15 mathematical art exhibitions including the year-long interdisciplinary project Rhythm of Structure: Bow ery and Beyond, featuring Sol LeWitt, Karen Finley, Adrian Piper, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Mark Strand, at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City. Later, as artist in residence at Ringling, he worked on ongoing performance initiatives including projects related to Confederate iconography, visual terrorism, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

I was introduced to him by Florence Tate in the early 2000s. Mrs. Tate was a mutual friend and supporter, a consummate socialite and civil rights activist, John’s Sarasota neighbor, and the dynamic birth-mother of our shared New York friend and brother-in-spirit, Greg Tate. Sims was developing SquareRoots: A Q uilted M anifesto at the time — a body of colorful math-art quilts based on visual grids corresponding to the number pi, which he’d curiously created with a team of Amish women in Sarasota. I didn’t pretend to fully understand and he never tired of expounding, but the project was vibrant, captivating, and unlike anything I’d previously seen or experienced from an artist. One thing was abundantly clear rom the first meeting his man’s brain was on fire!

His other works at the time included “Time Sculpture” and hand-made chess boards with white kings that could not be dethroned. And, he was at the ront o his on ederate ag wor which would evolve and draw both acclaim and outrage throughout his career. While there was no particular math component to Sims’s ag pro ect he believed that “mathematics give us a starting platform for discussing complex ideas,” from nature to racial di erences history and in ustice he fundamental idea connecting all his work, he said, is that it gives voice and vision to “political, visual, and philosophical investigation.”

In purposely open and vulnerable spaces throughout the country, and especially the U.S. South, Sims continued to invent courageous exhibitions and performances around the Confederate Flag in a two-decades long project that came to be known as Recoloration Proclamation. He sought to change the interpretation o the ag by recoloring

Opposite page: Members of Detroit’s arts community honored John Sims during a memorial at Irwin House Gallery.

it red, black, and green, or simply black and white ore than di erent ags were introduced, like the “Drag Flag” (dressed in Boa feathers and installed with high-heeled shoes), or the “Bondage Flag” (as you might imagine, fashioned in S&M leather and chains). The original ersion o the on ederate ag was to be publicly burned, hung from a noose, eulogized, funeralized, and was, in at least one instance, married to a Confederate soldier. These installations did not come without protest and opposition, which Sims valiantly faced, and welcomed.

In 2015, he initiated the Burn and Bury Memorial Day event, The Burn and Bury Video A nthem, and a C onfederate Flag Support Kit. The sixth annual performance, held on May 31, 2022 at the Houston Museum of African American Art and Culture, continued the endeavor to create a new tradition inviting all Americans to engage in a space of healing, release, and transformation.

Other visual and musical dramati ations were also designed to re ect alternate iews o amiliar symbols As a video component, Sims went on to write The G ettysburg Redress (an emendation of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address) and collaborated with producers, such as DJ Spooky, to create ten di erent ersions o “Di ie ” merica’s

most famous Southern heritage song. In 2018, the chapbook A blazing G race, was published Its pages o ered a isual history o the on ederate ag Sims’s poetic analysis and a loo at the ag’s ultimate demise he ag wor which began as early as 2002 and shape-shifted across genres, grew to embrace an army of academic and artistic collaborators from Harlem to the Deep South, Texas, and Florida. Despite the expanse and gra ity o this contentious political work, the artist still made time for the de elopment o new art writing friends, and social life. i e many Detroiters ma ing wa es around the nation and abroad, stories of Detroit ruins and rebirth were calling Sims home. When the Irwin ouse allery first thought to open its doors for a tribute to Aretha Franklin after her passing in 2018, Sims was the first to lend his support he gallery was then a mere idea of an art space, with dirt oors construction debris and exposed wires, but Sims immersed himsel in the ision conceptuali ing and co-curating an exhibit that imagined Aretha as a force of nature. For the exhibition, A retha Supernatural: Tribute to a Q ueen, he contributed a ideo poem “ urricane retha” a four-minute track he wrote, produced, and per ormed with bac ground ocals by Syl ia laloc he show urther included isual tributes by artists rom Detroit to N ew York, along with performances and writings by Mahogany Jones, Kim Hunter, and Marsha Music. While there would be numerous highprofile and star studded tributes to the Q ueen of Soul to come, this exhibition pro ided a space or raw grassroots re ections on retha and her impact on local communities.

“ hen I thin o a power ul e pression of nature and its complex beauty, I think of a hurricane, with its enormous reach, peaceful center, and capacity to transform boundaries of where land meets water meets air ” Sims wrote in M etro Times pro iding bac ground or the pro ect “ ter sur i ing urricane Irma I ha e come to understand and appreciate the power and soul of nature and its capacity to express the harsh physics and lo ing spirit o the uni erse unaccountable to the whims of human ollies and inter ention hen I thin of the powerful expression of the human supernatural and its complex majesty, I think also of Aretha Franklin, a blessed hurricane o lo e soul and ustice ” or the ’ s themed closing reception in early Sims ew in with a techno remi and inyl prototype o the trac with music by ichal i man Although he had been supporting the e hibition or se eral months it was his first in person isit to the gallery

“As Detroit transforms, we must not forget the stories, the physical spaces and folks of the neighborhood block, where the rhythm and soul of the city resides and from where the future shall flow.” — John Sims

Later that year, Sims returned to Irwin House for a one-month residency and co-headlined a book-signing and reading e ent with iebler in the space. He had been a contributor to the book, Respect: The Poetry of Detroit M usic, a collection of poems and lyrics celebrating Detroit’s incredible musical history edited by Liebler and Jim Daniels here was a launch e ent at hird Man Records in which Sims performed with a colorful cast brought to life from the boo ’s pages owe er the main ocus o Sims’s stay was or the de elopment of a multimedia project on the west-side block he grew up on at Sorrento and W. Chicago. He was serious and passionate about the undertaking. a ing returned home a ew years earlier to find his home bloc in near shambles, with only a few of its original residents remaining, including his mother, Sims was compelled to recapture the memories and the life of the neighborhood. The project would begin with recording and filming historical narrati es rom the bloc ’s current and past residents and wor ing on the de elopment of an exhibition of copper etchings of each home in its original glory.

During his one-month stay and just one week into the residency, Sims tragically and unexpectedly lost his mother, Joyce Cartwright Sims, who was or ob ious reasons the heart o the project. A funeral was planned and proceeded and, powering through his grief, Sorrento: Portrait of a Detroit Block pushed forward. Screenings, book-signings, and talks that took place throughout the residency left audiences titillated and awe-stricken. A surprise 80th birthday celebration was e en held or the Sorrento bloc ’s matriarch, Ms. Rosie, and, as part of the gallery’s sophomore e hibition Detroit Future History Sims’s ideo poem “D-C ity Blues” o ered sobering isual and erbal commentary on the state o Detroit’s orgotten neighborhoods ne phrase in the poem “uncelebrated west side sunsets” reminds us o the ma esty o the city’s seldom noticed bac drops a wealth o natural scenery not often associated with the likes of gritty Detroit. The poem goes on to address the e ects o and questions the dwindled population, but this line resounds in my mind each time I am fortunate enough to witness a waft of pink and purple hues settling o er I It is ohn pointing out the masterpiece that still is Detroit.

Sims appears twice in M etro Times during this period, including a thoughtful and personal piece he penned on

Sims created colorful math-art quilts based on visual grids corresponding to the number pi with a team of Amish women.

the Sorrento bloc and the alue o our memories and neighborhoods. The article “Don’t orget the bloc ” sums up with a cautionary word “ s Detroit transforms, we must not forget the stories, the physical spaces and folks of the neighborhood block, where the rhythm and soul of the city resides and from where the uture shall ow ” here were no bounds to Sims’s intellect and imagination, the connections he made, bonds formed, and the push, not only to en old creati e and academic communities around the world into his world, but for all of us to excel and ignite our own particular genius. Sims was his own biggest, loudest cheerleader yet with the same er e and olume he praised and bolstered the work of others riends colleagues causes and all he considered to be just.

Artist and philanthropist Danny Simmons recalls meeting Sims almost years ago at the owery oetry lub Then, at the beginning of his journey as a poet, Simmons was asked to read one of his poems and was ner ous Sims sat ne t to him o ering reassuring words and a friendship was formed. Fast-forward two decades and Sims’s image has ust appeared on the co er o Tribes maga ine’s “ lac i es atter” issue which Simmons curated o ember

“ e were both beaming ” Simmons shares adding that they had ust finali ed the details or a ew or e hibition when he recei ed the news o the artist’s passing

“I was stunned and am still stunned and will be or uite a while ” he says “ ohn was a strong clear and continual oice or social ustice and liberation A warrior, really, who used art as his weapon he sur ey e hibition we scheduled will now be a memorial show with a wider sur ey o artists So many of us in the community are reeling from his passing. The exhibition, hosted by A Gathering of the Tribes and company, and curated by Halima Taha, will seek to continue to lift John up in admiration with our lo e or the man ”

Sabrina elson may ha e been one o the only Detroit creati es to actually set oot in Sims’s Sarasota studio She says her “heA RT” led her to isit e ery January when her work with College for reati e Studies too her to the area When Sims was in Detroit they would sometimes hang at her home and studio e changing creati e ideas Sims had presented a Woodward Lecture at S in and elson remembered a presentation of his A froDixie remixes at the DIA the following year. She spoke about brainstorming with

Sims’s Confederate flag work drew both acclaim and outrage.

Sims or a “ urn and ury” ceremony he was planning at ’ amdi enter or Contemporary Art on Memorial Day of 2017, as the city was preparing for the th anni ersary o the riots he e ent went on to include prominent area ministers poets and acti ists including Liebler, Jennifer Harge, Kim unter onica ewis atric essica are moore e e elson and e harles illiams II “ e was brilliant and lo ed his connection here ” elson adds “ e was a gentle giant ”

Marsha Music recounts meeting Sims when he presented a “ ascinating tal on math and race ” She too had attended his equally fascinating A froDixie production at the DIA and described “ arious lac artists singing soul iterations of the song Dixie, acknowledging and transcending its confederate association, appropriating the song’s amiliar musicality ” She said she began to read about his work around the country.

“ e was engaging in a social practice that was inde atigable and bold ” she says “ e became riends online and talked about our work, the work of others, and, more recently, about the possibility o his ha ing another e hibit in Detroit. He was a genius, a phenom, a towering lac man with soaring hair formidable in presence and intellect. e lea es a space in the arts that only he had occupied and he will be missed ”

Journalist KyleeliseTHT was a Floridian friend and collaborator of Sims. Their work together included transcribing and archi ing his ideas but she emphasi ed that Sims pushed her as much to find and share her own creati e oice

“ ohn’s lo e o his home city was so in ectious that I mar eled at his ision o what some people belie ed was a city in decay, that John knew had so much potential ” she shares “ ohn saw it as a city o hope and possibility ”

Sims’s pro ects are spread out comple and mani old ertainly I ha e failed to touch on many of his career highlights including the i Day nthem he produced with Vi Hart and his 35th annual i Day residency at San rancisco’s Exploratorium, his 2021 residency at La Mama Experimental Theater in N ew York, and his most recent sculpture project, wrought from scrap metal sal aged rom ohn hamberlain’s demolished studio, a tribute to the late artist and the loss o creati e space

There was also that time he boycotted his own show in Gettysburg, and more recently when was arrested at gunpoint during a 2021 residency in South Carolina. There are scores more accomplishments, accolades, and supremely remarkable moments in the giant life and times of John Sims, who lectured and produced programs and exhibitions not only nationally but internationally in countries such as rance ungary Spain Slo enia Israel, and Argentina. His work has been featured locally as well as in The N ew York Times, U SA Today, The Wall Street Journal , Washington Post, CN N , ews The G uardian, The Root, ThinkProgress, A l Jazeera, G uernica, A rt in A merica, Transition, Sculpture, FiberA rts, Science N ew s, and the science journal N ature. He has written for major publications such as CN N , A l Jazeera, he u n ton ost, G uernica, The Rumpus, and The G rio. One thing or certain howe er is that Sims was committed to deepening his ties to Detroit and bringing nearly three decades of artistic and cultural genius home.

He was hopeful about the prospect o turning his mother’s Sorrento home into a public creati e space and he was e ploring staging a Detroit ersion o The Square Root of Love an annual e ening of candle-lit poetry featuring guest artists and including Sims’s own signature wine which he had presented on alentine’s Day in ew or aris and Sarasota Additionally, we had our eyes open for a ertical wall within the city to erect a mural inspired by Sims’s “ orona illa” ideo game and mar ing the e ents and life-altering social facets of 2020. Sims was ery specific about where the wall should be and how it should look, and we were determined to find it course we thought we had time. n the ip side o the shoc and sadness of losing a pal and ally lies an earnest celebration in ha ing had an opportunity to know the man that was John Sims.

Sims was e cellent eriod nd to be in his great presence, you had to be excellent. He demanded it. He coaxed it. He inspired it. He supported it. I am grateful for the knowing, for the time spent, the ideas exchanged, the disagreements e en the pro ects reali ed together and the possibilities, still, for the uture is big booming oice rings I am sure, in the heads of all of us who grew with him o er the years nd that oice reminds us that we had better do it right whate er it may be.

As much as I will be protecting and mo ing orward unfinished Sims concepts in Detroit, I can only imagine how many irons he had in fires around the world. He made time to talk with, plan, and collaborate widely in a swelling circle o agents and allies ith re erence and gratitude for his life in our hearts, we will all be doing the work.

“ his is legacy wor ” yleelise points out. ohn Sims may ha e le t the planet but his life has not ended.

“ ohn is a son o the city a true spirit o Detroit ” says his brother aron Sims “ orn in a city with a rich tradition o social ustice and acti ism and raised in an era of fearless leadership, John, like many Detroiters, was destined to tra el into the world to fight the good fight start the good trouble, and speak truth to power. His li e’s wor re eals a li e well li ed s a nati e son and brother he has made us all proud. We plan to bring him home and share his legacy with generations to come ”

In lieu o owers, the amily re uests that donations be sent to organizations that Sims su orted, includin Irwin House G allery and Halo A rts Project – A ngels for A rtists. You can learn more about the artist and his w ork at johnsimsprojects.com.