For Simmons\, reading is the first step in making a new work\, and access to information without barriers is critica l to everyone's liberation. \;
\nSimmons will be joined in conve rsation with Dr. Rhea L. Combs\, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Nat ional Portrait Gallery\, to discuss how the artist&rsquo\;s billboards fit into her larger body of work. Following a presentation and discussion\, a udience members will have the chance to preview Reading Work: Season O ne\, a new multi-year online project forthcoming this fall\, produced and directed by Simmons with collaborators across the country.
\nTh is program\, and the presentation of Simmons&rsquo\; artwork\, are made po ssible through support from the DC Public Library Foundation. \;
\nRead on for more detail.
Installation of Xavie
ra Simmons' Freedom is Not Guaranteed\, MLK Library\, 2023<
br />Artwork courtesy of the artist and David Castillo Gallery.
Simmons&rsquo\; artwork on view at the MLK Library is part of a series of photographs investigating the conte mporary political landscape. Written in bold lettering across the image of a pointing figure in the landscape\, the phrase &lsquo\;FREEDOM IS NO T GUARANTEED&rsquo\; alludes to many of the same themes that have res ulted in book bans across the U.S\, such as White Supremacy\, Reparations\ , Indigenous Sovereignty\, Trans Rights and Incarceration. \;
\nThe artist has said: \;
\n\n\nWhen I write or cont emplate the phrase &lsquo\;freedom is not guaranteed\,&rsquo\; &hellip\; I start with the most vulnerable\, those are the people who should be cente red at every turn. I am in Los Angeles right now\, where the people most v ulnerable are the unhoused\, many of whom are Black men and women. The mos t vulnerable are also Trans persons and the multitude of Indigenous commun ities across this country whose lands and lifeways are the foundation and continuation of everything we have here.
\n
Origi nally commissioned by the artist collective For Freedoms in 2018 as part o f a 50 states billboard campaign\, FREEDOM IS NOT GUARANTEED has be en exhibited in South Dakota and in Brooklyn\, NY. Each location&ndash\;an d the changing political climate&ndash\;brings a new layer of meaning to t he work. Simmons&rsquo\; message resonates in Washington\, D.C as it is th e seat of the country&rsquo\;s political power and is a place meant to hol d the varying voices of the United States. \;
\nWhen creating a
new piece\, Simmons has said &ldquo\;My first step is to go get books.&rdq
uo\; Her 2023 museum exhibition\, Crisis Makes a Book Club\, dist
ributed almost 4000 titles over the course of its six month run. Simmons&r
squo\; message Freedom is Not Guaranteed takes on renewed urgency at a tim
e when book bans are on the rise nationwide\, in particular titles that ad
dress racially-based inequalities or that center on LGBTQ themes.
Following a presentation and discussi
on with Dr. Combs\, audience members will have a chance to preview Rea
ding Work: Season One\, a new multi-year online project produced and
directed by Xaviera Simmons with an interdisciplinary group of artist and
non-artist collaborators with contributions from participants in over half
of the 50 states. The project aims to provide political education while a
lso distributing books and monetary funds to creative collaborators\, part
icularly those in vulnerable communities. Reading Work:Season One
is generously funded by Agnes Gund&rsquo\;s Art For Justice. This will be
the first public preview of the work prior to its public launch in Novemb
er.
Xaviera Simmons&rsquo\; sweeping practice includes p hotography\, painting\, video\, sound\, sculpture\, text and installation. Her work engages the formal histories of art through the construction of landscape\, language\, and the complex histories of the United States and its continuing empire building internally and on a global scale. \; Si mmons received her BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years o n a walking pilgrimage retracing the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade with Buddh ist Monks. She completed the Whitney Museum&rsquo\;s Independent Study Pro gram in Studio Art (2005) while simultaneously completing a two-year actor -training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio\, NY. The artist ha s exhibitions\, performances\, large scale installations and web-based pro jects slated to open globally through 2025. Recent solo exhibitions includ e Crisis Makes A Book Club at The Queens Museum (2023) Nectar at Kadist\, Paris (2022)\, The Structure\, The Labor\, the Pause at Sarasota Art Museu m (2022)\, Convene at Sculpture Center\, New York\; Overlay at Radcliffe I nstitute at Harvard University\; The Gold Miner&rsquo\;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. \; In 2021 Simmons was the ina ugural guest editor of Art Basel Magazine. Simmons has held teaching posit ions at Yale University\, Columbia University and Harvard University. In S pring 2020 she was awarded the prestigious The Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College. Simmons is a recipient of Socrates Sculpture Park's Artist Award (2019) and Agnes Gund&rsquo\;s Art for Just ice Award (2018).
\nDr. Rhea Combs is the director of curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Wa shington DC. Combs was previously at the Smithsonian&rsquo\;s National Mus eum of African American History and Culture where she served as the curato r of film and photography and head of the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Cent er for African American Media Arts (CAAMA) She previously taught visual cu lture\, film\, race and gender courses at Chicago State University\, Lewis &\; Clark College and Emory University. Additionally\, Combs has indep endently and successfully curated film exhibitions nationally and internat ionally for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City\, the National Black Programming Consortium\, and the Institute of C ontemporary Arts in London\, to name a few. She also worked as the assista nt curator for the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta and as a public programs educator at the Chicago Historical Society (now Chicago Hi storical Museum). Combs received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard U niversity\, a Master of Arts degree from Cornell University\, and a Doctor ate from Emory University. Her writings have been featured in anthologies\ , academic journals and exhibition catalogues on range of topics including African American female filmmakers\, black popular culture\, visual aesth etics\, filmmaking and photography.
\nThis discussion will invite au
dience members to consider the true meaning of freedom and repair in a cou
ntry where those freedoms continue to be taken away. This program is one o
f the DC Public Library&rsquo\;s featured Banned Books Week programs and a
ctivities celebrating the public library&rsquo\;s role as a space of intel
lectual and creative freedom.
Learn \;more about DC Public Library's Banned
Books Week programming.