Visiting Artist Lecture: Xaviera Simmons

Xaviera Simmons will discuss the artistic process and inspiration behind her often provocative and confrontational work.
Refreshments will be served. The lecture is a part of the Claudia DeMonte Lecture Series and the exhibition 30 Americans. Presented in partnership with the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the David C. Driskell Center and the Department of Art, with support from the College of Arts and Humanities.

In addition to creating dazzling photographs and gripping sculptures, Xaviera Simmons also makes critically acclaimed installations. These often investigate music, particularly cherished LP artwork. In 2006, she created How to Break Your Own Heart, stapling classic jazz albums covers on the walls of New York City’s Art in General gallery, where she frequently deejays.  “I constructed this installation as a site of sensorial intervention in a heavily trafficked landscape,” she explained to the New York Foundation for the Arts. “My intentions were also to create a space that was immediately educational to the passerby, a space that engages as well as surprises.”

The following year, she reprised the concept at Houston’s Contemporary Art Museum with the installation, Electric Relaxation: Digital Good Times, which included R&B and hip-hop album covers along with archival video footage.

Watch the video excerpt in which Xaviera Simmons talks about how music influenced some of her work for Duke University’s 2010 exhibition, The Record at the Nasher Museum of Art.
 

The event is free. However, registration is requested.  For more information and to print a ticket, visit the website.