Luhring Augustine will open its doors to the solo exhibition of recent works by Simone Leigh.
Best described by the Gallery, “The exhibition features a new body of sculptural work that departs from and continues the exploration of her earlier series: Anatomy of Architecture. In these works she draws upon disparate, seemingly anachronistic histories of ancient Roman-Egyptian and more recent American vernacular art and architecture, with a focus on the anthropomorphic features of objects and their relationship to specific functions. From a 200 BC bronze “Vase and lid in the form of a Nubian boy”, to face jugs produced by enslaved African American potters in South Carolina, and to Mammy’s Cupboard ~ a Mississippi cafe’ housed in the figure of a woman’s skirt, Leigh’s new ceramic sculptures parse how these objects emblematize and problematize space in regard to the body, fusing and implicating the human form with architecture.”
Simone Leigh has become a name familiar to New Yorkers in recent years, creating beautiful art with a message ~ as with her series of sculptures entitled Anatomy of Architecture, personifying the female form at The Art Show, at the 2017 Park Avenue Armory ~ And her 2016 installation in Marcus Garvey Park (Harlem) featuring three structures reminiscent of imba yokubikira (kitchen houses) from rural areas of Zimbabwe. We remember Leigh’s 2016 exhibition at New Museum entitled Simone Leigh: Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter as part of the exhibition The Waiting Room. In The Power of Your Care, that same year, which was a group exhibition at The 8th Floor ~ and as the creator of the Free People’s Medical Clinic (a social practice project created with Creative Time in 2014), located in a Bed-Stuy brownstone called the Stuyvesant Mansion.
The solo exhibition, Simone Leigh, will be on view September 8 to October 20, 2018, with Opening Reception on Friday, September 7 from 6-8pm at Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street, NYC. In addition, a 25 minute video installation commissioned by Berlin Biennale, which is a conversation with artists who think beyond art … will also be on view.
What’s next for Simone Leigh? We look forward to Spring 2019 on The High Line when Leigh will debut her 16-foot tall bronze bust of a black woman entitled, Brick House, on a new section located at West 30th Street and 10th Avenue.