30 Americans Opening Day Lecture with Xaviera Simmons

Join us as we welcome Xaviera Simmons, one of the artists featured in 30 Americans. Free with membership or admission. Registration encouraged. Space is limited. Face coverings required.

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Simmons’ sweeping practice of photography, painting, video, sound, sculpture, text, and installation engages the construction of landscape, language, and the complex histories of the United States and its continuing empire-building internally and on a global scale. Simmons’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and belongs to 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 De La Cruz Collection, Miami; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Studio Museum in Harlem; and many private collections. Simmons received her BFA from Bard College in 2004 and 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, New York. Simmons is a recipient of Socrates Sculpture Park's Artist Award (2019) and Agnes Gund’s Art for Justice Award (2018) as well as Denniston Hills’ Distinguished Performance Artist Award (2018). In Spring 2020 she was awarded The Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College. She has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University, School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia University. Her 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' current research has been generously supported by The Ford and Mellon Foundations. 

This program has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. 

^{Xaviera Simmons
Make the Fist, 2004
Chromira C-print, Ed. 1/5
30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
© Xaviera Simmons. Courtesy Rubell Museum, Miami}