Gary Simmons takes on the American West at Denver’s Cookie Factory
On November 8, 2025, Cookie Factory presents “Rush,” a major solo exhibition by acclaimed American artist Gary Simmons, which will remain on view through May 9, 2026. Cookie Factory, a place for contemporary art and cultural exchange opening its doors in Denver’s Baker neighborhood in May 2025, collaborates with renowned artists to create site specific exhibitions inspired by the unique context and landscapes of Denver and Colorado.
In line with this ethos centered on artists and place, Simmons’ new installation, created specifically for Cookie Factory, explores the racialized mythology of the American frontier—engaging with Manifest Destiny, migration, survival, and the contested narratives that shape national identity. “Rush” is curated by Cookie Factory Artistic Director Jérôme Sans.
“This exhibition engages with the layered and complex histories of the American West and Colorado, and we look forward to introducing Gary’s stellar work to our growing community and Denver at large,” Amanda Precourt, Founder and Executive Director of Cookie Factory, said.
The exhibition builds on Simmons’ longstanding exploration of memory, visibility, and historical omission, using his signature technique of partially erasing hand-drawn images and text to create ghostly, residual forms. In “Rush,” Simmons advances this strategy across large-scale wall drawings, paintings, a wheatpaste poster installation on the building’s facade, and a participatory reading room. Drawing inspiration from early cinema—a recurring reference point in Simmons’ work—and elements of American folklore, the exhibition takes up Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush to examine the charged terrain between comedy and catastrophe, nostalgia and erasure.
At the heart of “Rush” are two powerful images: a precariously teetering cabin pulled from Chaplin’s iconic film; and a covered wagon, emblematic of westward migration and the complex legacy of American ambition. Layering references to settler-colonial narratives and the illusory promises of the American Dream, Simmons renders these forms through smudged drawings on sepia-toned grounds—invoking both the materiality of the past and its echoing force.
Drawn in white chalk on blackboard-like surfaces, fragmentary texts, adapted from the original intertitles of The Gold Rush, punctuate the exhibition. Isolated from their cinematic context, these hovering phrases lose their narrative anchors and take on a new resonance, pointing to the gaps, absences, and distortions within dominant historical narratives.
Spectral stars recur across paintings and the building’s exterior—symbols long associated with aspiration, direction, and the promise of a better future. Rendered in blurred and fading forms, these stars suggest not arrival, but uncertainty. As they accumulate across surfaces, including the weather-exposed wheatpaste mural, they evoke movement, displacement, and the erosion of myth. Their presence amplifies the fractured dreams, dispossessed futures, and the dislocations that haunt American mythmaking.
“This project moves through the slippage between representation and abstraction, history and mythology,” says Simmons. “It’s about chasing a dream and confronting what gets lost—or who gets erased—along the way.”
The exhibition also includes a community reading room focused in part on banned and challenged books, inviting local voices to reflect on and participate in an ongoing conversation about censorship, cultural resilience, and the many ways stories are shaped, silenced, or reclaimed. The reading room was conceived by Simmons as a living, evolving project, keeping knowledge alive and underscoring the urgency of sharing it. The selected books reflect themes central to Simmons’ practice—history, migration, expansionism, American mythmaking, fragmentation, and erasure— and amplify marginalized voices of the American West. Enriched by contributions from local collaborators and featuring opportunities for visitors to respond to the exhibition, the reading room deepens the exhibition’s ties to the histories and communities of Colorado.
“For his exhibition at Cookie Factory, Simmons engages with a deeply embedded trope in American history and imagination: that of Manifest Destiny and the westward expansion of pioneers,” Jérôme Sans said. “Addressing a subject that remains highly political, Simmons repositions Colorado within its historical context, one shaped by this national narrative as a supposedly untouched, wild, and Indigenous land to be entered, tamed, and inhabited, in line with this heroic and providential vision of conquest.”
“Rush” will open with a block party at Cookie Factory on Saturday, November 8, from 2-7 pm. Called “Legends League,” the event will feature a dunk contest, breakdancing, a collaborative “memory bench” project, food trucks, and music by local DJs, designed to bring the community together around themes of nostalgia, storytelling, and local legends.
About Gary Simmons
One of the foremost artists of a generation that emerged during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gary Simmons has achieved wide acclaim over the past three decades for his work, which explores the politics of race, class, and social stereotypes through painting, sculpture, sound, and architectural environments. Simmons uses imagery drawn from popular culture to create works that address personal and collective memories.
Born in New York in 1964, Simmons received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1988, and his MFA from CalArts in 1990, His work has been the subject of exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the institutional survey “Gary Simmons: Public Enemy” at both the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
About Cookie Factory
Cookie Factory is a place for contemporary art and cultural exchange. Dedicated to fostering creativity and dialogue, Cookie Factory collaborates with internationally renowned artists to create new, site-specific works inspired by Denver and Colorado’s landscapes and cultural fabric.
Housed in a revitalized 1940s fortune cookie factory in the Baker neighborhood of Denver, Cookie Factory operates on an intimate, human scale, to cultivate personal and intuitive experiences through art.
Cookie Factory is free and open to the public on Wednesdays from 4–7pm. All are welcome. Visitors interested in scheduling a visit outside of regular hours or arranging group tours are encouraged to email: info@cookiefactorydenver.com.
