DAYTON, OH.- The Contemporary Dayton is presenting Xaviera Simmons: Figure Eleven, a major solo exhibition that brings together recent works in photography, painting, video, and the world premiere of a new body of bronze sculptures by one of the most bold and visionary artists of our time. The exhibition is on view November 14, 2025 through January 24, 2026, at The Contemporary Dayton, located in the historic Dayton Arcade.

Simmons’ practice is deeply rooted in art history, both through deliberate assertion and continuous engagement, drawing on references that span from antiquity and the American landscape to contemporary media. Her work unfolds through a cinematic sensibility where narrative, movement, and stillness intersect. This is evident in her acclaimed photographic series such as American Book Covers and Sundown, in her monumental text paintings, and now in this new body of bronze sculptures.

Performance, choreography, and the sensual are integral to Simmons’ artistic language. In this recent sculptural work, these elements coalesce into forms that feel both classical and contemporary. As with much of her practice, Figure Eleven situates art history within an ongoing continuum, like a film that resists final resolution.

The sculptures recall the Venus of Willendorf and Venus de Milo while simultaneously reflecting the multiplicity of contemporary bodies and motifs. Their power lies in their ability to collapse and reconcile distinct historical and cultural narratives. The figures embody a poised stillness that resonates with the language of movement and performance. Figure Eleven, both the exhibition’s title and the newest figurative sculpture, appears as if drawn from a film still, a moment suspended between gesture and permanence.

Xaviera Simmons’s body of work spans photography, performance, video, sound, sculpture and installation. She defines her studio practice, which is rooted in an ongoing investigation of experience, memory, abstraction, present and future histories-specifically shifting notions surrounding landscape-as cyclical rather than linear. In other words, Simmons is committed equally to the examination of different artistic modes and processes; for example, she may dedicate part of a year to photography, another part to performance, and other parts to installation, video, and sound works-keeping her practice in constant and consistent rotation, shift, and engagement.

Simmons received her BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the Transatlantic 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. She is a visiting lecturer and the inaugural 2019 Solomon Fellow at Harvard University and was awarded The Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College in Summer 2020. In 2019, Xaviera Simmons’s work was included in over fifteen museum exhibitions including shows at the ICA Boston, SFMOMA, The Phillips Collection (D.C.), National Museum of Women in the Arts (D.C.), Barnes Foundation, and many others. In 2017, Simmons’s work was included in exhibitions at Harvard University, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and The Institute of Contemporary Art (Winnipeg). In the same year, three of Simmons’s works were acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2015, Simmons was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Robert Rauschenberg) Grant. Simmons has exhibited nationally and internationally where major exhibitions and performances include The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, The Public Art Fund, The Sculpture Center, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and Brooklyn Museum, among many others. Her works are in major museum and private collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Nasher Museum, Deutsche Bank, The Rubell Family Collection, UBS, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Agnes Gund Art Collection, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Studio Museum in Harlem, ICA Miami, The High Museum, The de la Cruz Collection, and Perez Art Museum Miami.