Born in New York, NY, 1974
Lives and works in New York, NY
Xaviera Simmons' sweeping body of work includes photography, performance, choreography, video, sound, sculpture and installation. Simmons’ interdisciplinary practice is rooted in shifting definitions of landscape, character development; art, political and social histories and the interconnectedness of formal processes. Simmons received her BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade with Buddhist Monks. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art (2005) while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio, NY. Xaviera Simmons is a recipient of Socrates Sculpture Park's Artist Award (2019) Agnes Gund’s Art for Justice Award (2018), as well as Denniston Hills’ Distinguished Performance Artist Award (2018). Her work is included in numerous upcoming exhibitions and projects including Sundown at David Castillo Gallery, Miami, “The Restless Earth” curated by Massimiliano Gioni, at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2019); Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Commission (2018-2019), among many others. Recent solo exhibitions include “Convene” at Sculpture Center, New York; “Overlay” at Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University; “The Gold Miner’s Mission to Dwell on the Tide Line” at The Museum of Modern Art- The Modern Window, New York; and “CODED” at The Kitchen, New York. Current and recent museum group exhibitions include The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; MassArt, Boston; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Seattle Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Prospect.4, New Orleans; Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan; Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Cincinnati Art Museum; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, among others. Simmons’ work has been featured and reviewed in many publications over the years, most recently in ArtNews, The Art Newspaper, Artnet News, Artforum, Hyperallergic, New York Magazine, Bloomberg, Paper Magazine, The New York Times and others. Simmons’ works are in major museum and private collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Deutsche Bank, New York; UBS, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Agnes Gund Art Collection, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Studio Museum in Harlem; ICA Miami; Perez Art Museum Miami; The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro; The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham; The High Museum, Atlanta; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; among others. Simmons has works currently on view in exhibitions at; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The ICA Boston, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, The Highline New York, The Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C, The Barnes Collection, Philadelphia and Julliard, New York. She is a 2020 visiting lecturer and the inaugural Solomon Fellow at Harvard University.