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{"id":266255,"date":"2025-01-01T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T21:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/compte-rendu\/simone-leigh\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T07:55:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T12:55:29","slug":"simone-leigh","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/simone-leigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Simone Leigh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Iconic silhouettes, transfigured, enigmatic, and utterly imperturbable: Simone Leigh\u2019s monumental idols engage viewers in a silent dialogue with past histories of marginalization, objectification, and repression. Often incomplete, eyeless, and yet solidly present, these bodies stand proud as transfixed incarnations of different forms of resilience and persistence. Inscribed in the elegant stylization of their forms is a subtle tension that defines an underpinning sense of strength and complexity. Details are subdued, reduced to the bare minimum\u2014scattered clues relentlessly hinting at a multitude of plausible interpretive directions; endlessly flickering.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The glossy ceramic sheens and polished bronze define an idealized allure that emphasizes a grandiose and sleek feeling of permanence, while raffia strands tie the sculptural bodies down to earthly vicissitudes and cycles. Leigh\u2019s combination of materials not only pays homage to African traditions but also reclaims them within the politicizing contexts of contemporary art. In sculptures often informed by early Egyptian terracotta vessels and Nigerian ibeji figures, and employing premodern techniques\u2014including lost-wax casting and salt-fired ceramics\u2014Leigh determinately reconfigures the global history of sculpture for the very purpose of shaping a truly new, timeless, and non-colonial-derivative Black aesthetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Simone-Leigh\"
Simone Leigh<\/strong>
Last Garment<\/em>, 2022, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2023.
Photo: Timothy Schenck, courtesy of the artist & Matthew Marks Gallery, collection of Jonathan and Margot Davis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Leigh\u2019s mythology is held together by the politically charged iconicity of the female form. By centring on the representation of Black female figures that exude strength and dignity, she not only celebrates their existence but also critiques the historical and contemporary narratives that have often rendered them invisible. The more one looks, the more unfolds. Echoes and reflections: from one piece to the next, her powerful symbolic orchestration is manifested as a form of encoded and sacred lexicon. Cowrie shells, which have ancient significance as currency and symbols of wealth in many African cultures, enrich her work with multiple stratigraphies of meaning, inviting viewers to consider the entwinements that bind nature, humans, sexuality, sensuality, and power. Sheer abstraction often condenses into ambiguous and allusive signifiers: sexual organs and pointed breasts\u2014these also teeter at the edge of an unsettling tension. At times, they take on the guise of threatening weapons. At others, they gesture toward the promise of an overwhelming sensorial enclave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Simone-Leigh\"
Simone Leigh<\/strong>
Cowrie (Pannier)<\/em>, 2015, installation view, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.
Photo: Timothy Schenck, collection of Jonathan and Margot Davis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
It is through these subtle and yet affirming manifestations that Leigh reclaims and redefines Black identity, offering powerful counter-narratives that celebrate new Black womanhoods. Furthermore, by incorporating elements that reference African diasporic traditions, she underscores the interconnectedness of Black experiences across the world, as a form of universalized naturalization. This global perspective enriches the conception of Black identity as multifaceted and dynamic, shaped by a myriad of cultural influences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holding together Leigh\u2019s body of work are also the themes of community and collective memory. In more than one instance, the juxtaposition of works evokes a sense of shared experience and solidarity, inviting viewers to reflect on the communal aspects of identity construction and the ways in which communities preserve, uphold, and transmit cultural knowledges. These themes are further harnessed by the overarching conceptions of reconfiguration and healing that pervade the whole exhibition. Ultimately, through her iconic idols, Leigh explores art\u2019s potential as a medium of remediation and cultural reconfiguration, as well as its ability to build upon the unsteady grounds of historical traumas with undisputed and awe-inspiring solidity and empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An author and curator specializing in the history and theory of photography, representations of nature, and materiality in art, Giovanni Aloi has edited and written more than ten books. He is the editor of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture<\/em> and the University of Minnesota Press series Art after Nature.<\/em><\/p>\n
Giovanni Aloi, Simone Leigh<\/div>
Giovanni Aloi, Simone Leigh<\/div>
Giovanni Aloi, Simone Leigh<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles County Museum of Art<\/strong>
May 26, 2024\u2013January 20, 2025<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":266246,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[7283],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[932],"artistes":[7348],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-266255","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-113-plastics","auteurs-giovanni-aloi-en","artistes-simone-leigh-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/266255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=266255"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=266255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}