PETER
SIMENSKY

The passing of Peter Simensky, artist and chair of the Graduate Fine Arts MFA program at California College of the Arts, rocked his communities in the Bay Area, New York, Portland, Mexico, and Los Angeles. Simensky was the rare artist-teacher who took a stance, who didn’t shy away from hard conversations, and was also endlessly kind, advocating for his students at every turn.

The UC Berkeley Art Practice community mourns the loss of Peter Simensky, a distinguished alumnus and a profoundly innovative artist, who unexpectedly passed in December, 2023 at the age of 48. A 1999 graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in Art Practice and Art History, Peter's journey was one marked by joyful creative exploration, intellectual depth, and an unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of contemporary art and education.

In the fall of 2023, Peter's website with a record of select work was taken down because of an expired registration. Common Space is working to recover the domain and the data and will post an update here when the a new archive is recovered and put back online. Please contact jon@commonsapcestudio.com if you have any information or documentation for recent work.

Peter Simensky Currently On View: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) announces Bay Area Now 9 (BAN9), the ninth iteration of its signature triennial exhibition, opening on October 6, 2023. On view through May 5, 2024