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Xaviera Simmons

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Xaviera Simmons
Xaviera Simmons at the Performing History event at Columbia GSAPP
Born1974
New York, NY
NationalityAmerican
EducationBard College
Known forPhotography
Conceptual art
Painting
Sculpture
Performance
Installation
MovementContemporary art
AwardsSocrates Sculpture Park Artist Award alongside Agnes Gund (2019)
Patron(s)Agnes Gund

Xaviera Simmons (born 1974) is an American contemporary artist. She has discussed in lectures that she is a descendant of Black American enslaved individuals on all sides of her lineage as well as European American colonizers and Indigenous Americans through the institution of American Slavery.

Her body of work spans photography, performance, painting, video, sound, sculpture, and installation.[1] Her studio practice is rooted in an ongoing investigation of sensory experience, memory, and abstraction within present and future histories—specifically shifting notions surrounding landscape—as cyclical versus linear. Simmons is committed to the examination of different artistic modes and processes; she may dedicate part of a year to photography, another part to performance, and other parts to installation, video, and sound work. As of 2019, Simmons is a visiting Professor and lecturer and the Inaugural Solomon Fellow at Harvard University.

Education

Simmons received her BFA from Bard College in 2004, studying under An-My Lê, Larry Fink, Mitch Epstein, Luc Santeand Stephen Shore. She completed the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art in 2005, while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio.[2] Simmons's work has been exhibited at international institutions including Museum of Modern Art (New York), MoMA PS1 (Long Island City, New York), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.[3] In 2017, Simmons had a solo exhibition of her work at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.[4] To complement her practice as a visual artist, Simmons has also studied aspects of midwifery and herbalism.

Works/Shows

2019

She was in exhibitions such as the "Live Dangerously" exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts[5], the Platform section (large scale works) of the 25th Armory Show 2019[6], "Xaviera Simmons: Sundown" at David Castillo Gallery[7], in "When Home Won't Let You Stay" at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston[8].

She is outspoken in the art world beyond her visual practice, writing a critical comment article for The Art Newspaper entitled "Whiteness must undo itself to make way for the truly radical turn in contemporary culture"[9] and pulling out as a panelist at a New Museum festival when local Bronx organizers shut it down with their concerns[10]. Her article was quoted (with her permission) in artist William Powhida's first solo art exhibition in five years at Postmasters Gallery.

Convene (2018): Organized by SculptureCenter

Simmons's sculpture has been displayed at the Hunter's point south park in Queens. Along the shore of the East River, there are multiple canoes overturned, with their backs painted in bright colors. The colors she uses represent the flags of the nations of the immigrant communities that live in Queens, making it one of the most diverse boroughs of New York City. Keeping in mind the Trump administration, this piece takes on more relevance.[11]

Xaviera Simmons: Coded (2016)

Coded was a survey exhibition at The Kitchen.[12] In relation to the exhibition, Simmons also created a performance work that uses archival materials and resources to explore queer history, homoeroticism, and Jamaican dancehall culture.[13][14]

Xaviera Simmons: Underscore (2013–14)

Drawing on Simmons's practice as a multidisciplinary artist, Underscore was staged at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, where she presented two photographs, a slide installation, and a site-specific performance titled Number 17. Each of these components drew upon elements of both live and recorded music: the photographs Warm Leatherette (2009) and Horse (2009) used familiar LP covers as masks for her characters, the slide installation Into the Rehearsal were digitzed manipulations of low-resolution images from Jamaican dance-hall footage (the popular form of dance called daggering is specifically referenced) pooled from the Internet, and Number 17 transformed the museum's Opatrny Gallery into a space for Simmons to construct improvised visual/sound performances coupled with high-endurance practices and action painting.[15]

Archive As Impetus: Artists Experiment (2013)

Simmons was a participant in the Artists Experiment series at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She acted as both artist and archivist, tracing the museum's own history, while extracting and reinstating examples of political action through gesture.[16]

Index Series (2013)

Simmons's Index series captured images of quasi-human torsos oriented at eye level: these forms were composed of ephemera such as rosaries, postcards, crushed photographs, and jewelry scraps, funneled into pairs of blue jeans and printed leggings.[17] These works are, effectively, stills of constructed bodies bearing traces of the real world, but inhabiting a unique space just beyond it. They are archives channeled into a body, reflecting the actual body's ability to document and store away memory and experience.

Thundersnow Road (2010)

Commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University as part of their 2010 exhibition The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, Simmons collaborated with a group of artists to produce a hybrid landscape photography-music installation. Simmons traveled and explored the varying topographies of North Carolina over a ten-day period; the images she took would serve as "album covers" for songs recorded by artists such as My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Superchunk's Mac McCaughan, and TV On the Radio members Kyp Malone, Tunde Adebimpe, and Jaleel Bunton. Durham-based record label Merge Records served as the music producer.[18]

Bronx As Studio (2008)

Public Art Fund's program for emerging artists, In the Public Realm, commissioned Simmons to produce a three-week project in June 2008, using the streets of the Bronx as a space for sidewalk games, classic photographic portraiture, and performance art. Passersby were encouraged to participate in various activities including hopscotch, soapbox speaking, chess, and Double Dutch. Simmons provided props and background elements, against which all of the publics' spontaneous activities were recorded. Color portraits were sent directly back to participants, as a way of completing the process of active, creative participation.[19]

Residences and fellowships

  • Grant To Artist Award, Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York, NY (2015)
  • Visiting Lecturer/Critic, Graduate Department of Sculpture, Yale University, New Haven, CT (2013)
  • smARTpower Initiative, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C. (2012)
  • Artist-In-Residence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2011-2012)
  • Residency, Center For Contemporary Art (Futura), Prague, CZ (2010)
  • Emergency Grant, Foundation For Contemporary Arts, New York, NY (2009)
  • Art Matters Fellowship, Art Matters, New York, NY (2009)
  • The David C. Driskell Prize, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA (2008)
  • Artist-In-Residence, Light Work, Syracuse, New York (2008)
  • In The Public Realm, The Public Art Fund, New York, NY (2008)
  • Artist-In-Residence, Art Omi, Ghent, NY (2008)
  • Urban Artist Initiative, New York, NY (2008)
  • The New York Community Trust Fellowship, New York, NY (2007)
  • Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant (2007)
  • Workspace Residency, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY (2007)
  • Artist-In-Residence, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY (2006)
  • New Commissions, Art In General, New York, NY (2006)
  • Acadia Summer Art Program (Kippy Kamp), Acadia, ME (2005)
  • Artist-In-Residence, Jamaica Center For Arts and Learning, Jamaica, NY (2005)
  • Creative Capital/Aljira: Emerge 7, Newark, NJ (2005)
  • Visible Knowledge Program (VKP) Artist/Educator, The New Museum, New York, NY (2005)
  • Cave Canem Poets Fellow, New York, NY (2002)

Selected collections

References

  1. ^ "Xaviera Simmons - David Castillo". David Castillo. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  2. ^ "Xaviera Simmons - David Castillo". David Castillo. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  3. ^ "The Artist's Museum | icaboston.org". www.icaboston.org. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  4. ^ "Exhibition by Xaviera Simmons | Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University". www.radcliffe.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  5. ^ "Live Dangerously : National Museum of Women in the Arts". The Eye of Photography Magazine. 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  6. ^ Selvin, Claire (2019-02-11). "Armory Show Names Artist List for 2019 Curated 'Platform' Section". ARTnews. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  7. ^ The Editors of ARTnews (2018-10-30). "Xaviera Simmons at David Castillo Gallery, Miami Beach". ARTnews. Retrieved 2019-10-01. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  8. ^ "ICA Boston Presents 'When Home Won't Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art'". ArtfixDaily. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  9. ^ "Whiteness must undo itself to make way for the truly radical turn in contemporary culture". www.theartnewspaper.com. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  10. ^ "A Bronx Event Organized by New Museum Shut Down After Protest by Local Activists". Hyperallergic. 2019-09-22. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  11. ^ "Ten public art works to see for free around New York this summer". www.theartnewspaper.com. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  12. ^ Fateman, Johanna. "Xaviera Simmons at The Kitchen". artforum.com. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  13. ^ "The Kitchen: Xaviera Simmons: CODED". thekitchen.org. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  14. ^ Rao, Mallika (2016-12-07). "Xaviera Simmons Elevates Queerness". Village Voice. Retrieved 2017-03-12.
  15. ^ http://www.aldrich.org/exhibitions/Simmons.php[permanent dead link]
  16. ^ "MoMA | Archive as Impetus: Xaviera Simmons". www.moma.org. Retrieved Sep 19, 2019.
  17. ^ "Xaviera Simmons, Open". Mar 6, 2014. Retrieved Sep 19, 2019.
  18. ^ http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2010/09/16/simmons-speaks-record#.VQhbblr3bCR
  19. ^ "Bronx as Studio - Public Art Fund". www.publicartfund.org. Retrieved Sep 19, 2019.
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