The Kitchen is pleased to present CODED, an exhibition of works by Xaviera Simmons featuring new and recent photographic, audio, video, text-based sculptural work and ultimately a movement-based performance. Her dynamic, interdisciplinary approach to art-making is rooted in an ongoing investigation of experience, memory, and present and future histories, specifically focusing on shifting notions surrounding landscape and character, as well as conversations between formal processes. 

With CODED, Simmons continues to mine art historical sources, Internet media, and archival images, in this case as they relate to queer history, homoerotic imagery as well as Jamaican dancehall culture, to construct a new, cohesive conceptual territory. Simmons’ particular vocabulary of movement, reference, sense, text, breath, sound, and image offers ways of looking at mapping, sexuality, gender, pleasure, and sensuality in a queer context and in an island context. The exhibition is the foundation for a unique choreographic score for the forthcoming performance work. Through the sensual, through movement, her works push towards a committed practice of visual freedom. Curated by Matthew Lyons.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 22 from 6–8pm

Gallery hours
June 23–July 2: Tuesday–Friday 12pm–6pm, Saturday 11am–6pm
Summer hours
July 5–July 29: Monday–Friday 11am–6pm