Simone Leigh at Hirshhorn

 

Satellite (2022), a massive sculpture at the entrance of the Hishhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the southern plaza is an irresistible invitation to the exhibition simply titled Simone Leigh. Spanning twenty years, the first survey of the artist's career made its debut at the ICA Boston a few months ago, and the selection for the show includes three new sculptures, a number of artworks exposed at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, and early key pieces. Simone Leigh has received international recognition with her practice primarily focused on a Black female audience. In 2022, she was the first black woman artist invited to represent the United States at the famous contemporary art show. The thirty works exposed in the galleries include sculptures in bronze, ceramics, and videos.

Following a non chronological order, the exhibition starts with Cupboard, 2022, an imposing grass skirt made of raffia. Of perfect shape, huge, reaching the floor and toppled by a cowrie shell evoking female genitals, the piece which belongs to the Glenstone Museum close-by in Maryland, is a great introduction to the show about the role and status of Black women. The matronly figure called "cupboard" alludes to domesticity, shelter and sustenance. Further, the visitor can find a gilded version also called Cupboard, 2022,  this time with a generously breasted bust on top of a pannier skirt decorated with palms. Early in her practice, Simone Leigh made ceramics an art form and recently discovered bronze with  Brick House (2019), found on the High Line in NYC, her first sculpture in the medium. Her creative process remains the same as she keeps modeling her sculptures in clay at the foundry before they are cast in bronze. My first encounter with one of her bronze was in New Orleans where Sentinel (Mami Wata) (2020-2021) was erected on Egality Circle formerly Lee Circle at the occasion of the fifth edition of the Prospect New Orleans Triennial. Her more recent sculptures seen for the first time include Vessel, Bisi and Herm (2023). Tall, slender, ebony black, semi-abstract, they also have in common female attributes and are displayed as a group in the middle of the exhibition. Herm is clearly the female version of a Greek herm, boundary marker traditionally featuring the head of Hermes, god of fertility, on top of a squared column decorated with male genitals. Leigh's sculpture can also be interpreted as a veiled reference to a hermaphrodite with its gracile leg emerging at the back of the male post. Vessel, a uniped human creature with a standing up canoe-like shape for body and a head of mixed African-Caucasian traits with a retro hairdo, left me perplexed. The title, Bisi, gives the key to the third sculpture, a portrait of Bisi Silva, a Nigerian curator-mentor encountered during Leigh's trips to Africa. A simple shape, half a cylinder,  creates an empty space, a place to hide, a refuge for comfort. The naked torso on top supports a smooth head without eyes or ears, emotionless, like goddesses in primitive sculptures. Leigh's first portrait, Sharifa, 2022, (Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts) is approximately nine feet tall and is a full length representation of the scholar of African-American  history, friend of the artist. She appears deep in thoughts, head slightly bent, eyes wide-open looking inward. Proudly bare-breasted with her arms falling along her full-length skirt from which one foot emerges, she exudes pride, strength and determination. 

Ceramics remain the foundation of Leigh's practice and about ten of her earlier and more recent works in  the medium are on display. Usually of smaller size, they introduce blazing colors like the yellow of the untitled portrait made in 2023. Eye-catching bright blue Martinique (2022), a tall monochrome sculpture, refers to a painful history: slavery during the Napoleonic era. The headless torso on top of the cylindric skirt is also a reminder of more recent events during which the statue of the empress Josephine, born on the island, was beheaded in 1991 and totally destroyed in 2020. Jug (2022), a white monochrome stoneware piece is a direct reference to the face jugs made by Black American potters from Edgefield County, South Carolina. Oddly, a white and black film (24:00 minutes) is projected in an area of heavy traffic, without seating. Conspiracy, 2022, a collaborative project between the sculptor and the filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich  premiered at the Venice Biennale. In a dark room, Breakdown (2011) is a nine minute compelling solo performance by Alicia Hall Moran about Black female hysteria. A third video from Simone Leigh and Chitra Ganesh titled after a poem composed by Gwendolyn Brooks, My Dreams, My Works Must Wait Till After Hell (2011) is about resilience of Black women in the face of adversity. The back of a reclining torso with a head buried under a pile of stones manages to be sensuous with the play of light on the black skin as a faint slow breathing reveals life. The end of the exhibition feels rushed. A small but powerful sculpture of a head almost faceless covered with handmade rosettes, symbols of manual labor, is faced by a glass cabinet filled with rows of sharpened teeth in memory of a man from Congo brought to America and put on display at the Bronx Zoo. The two works (respectively 2011 and 2001-04) deserve a more prominent spot earlier in the show. 

Jugs, cowrie shells, raffia, vernacular objects evocative of African cultures have become Leigh's primary resources for her practice, reflecting the artist's background. Born in Chicago of Jamaican descent, she studied philosophy and ethnography. Both nurtured her enduring interest in African and African American art, and consequently her practice. Multimedia artist she is better known for her ceramics and now bronze sculptures found in museums and public places. Her latest abundant production concentrates on Black women with a wider theme about colonization, race, feminism, through oversized goddess-like sculptures. They depict cross-cultural blends of Black women, remote, introverted and emotionless, which may make it difficult to connect with. 

                        

 

photographs by the author:

1-"Herm", 2023

2-"Overburdened with Significance", 2011

3-"Satellite", 2022

The end of the visit appears more like a hodgepoge although it is important or other pieces randomly  and the pieces put at the end do not makecredit to their importance due to thei place in the .. of the artist. iconic head with ... oTwo weird works, one with bananas the other wih teeth unrelated to women.   Early bronze are also present with ... and ... . It also brings up recent events as the sculptures erected .. was painted red and then altogether destroyed. putting an emphsis on the latest production creations of Leigh. She has been veryp productive lately with early bronze sculptures Jug, More bronze sculptures show the major interest of the artist for the medium, .jugs, heads, reference to house. constant theme. 

Vessel coudl shelter , a refuge in its carved bottom. , presented as a refuge. hiding place, comfort embrace. no folds but a  hald a cylinder. as Bisi is a portrait of ... like a boat, standing on one feet like a barque, with a head covered by hairdo definitely european. confusing or is it alluding to the curator .... more common features are the lack of eyes or ears, and arms. no embrace, inward turned inward. and silent. no smile of expressionless.   Her more recent sculptures have the same majesty tall, slender, and the color of ebony. Three new sculptures from 2023 are displayed in coversation in the same room, although their themes differThree of them are displayed in the same room, and seen for the first time: Vessel, Bisi and Herm (2023). The latest is a the other herm , is definitely female as god of Hermes, an susally a phallus appropriate, god male of fertitilty reference to female fertility turns male god in female also a foot , egyptian.Herm , the saquare column was found as a marker along the road. fecondity, dedicated to Hermes, here very female with prominent breast Herm relates to Greek mythology Herm Greek religion mythology Hermes fertility god pillars square bearded of Hermes ercect phallus replaced by breast hermaphrodite tapered rectangular stone post topped with portrait bustHer bronze sculptures are always gigantic , slender, and simple, in linear like, or next to roundish shapes, like in the same room, first seen, the artist hiding in the skirt of a tall woman. breasts are always prominent, figures ar eear or eyeless, deaf or blind, hyeratic, but emotionless, perfection of the black bronze, like African statues , but without the shine and softness of ebny , cold and ternes, a rroup of three sculptures in the space. room. the shawdow are respected and the display in not busy, leaving the space to each sculpture.three new works Bronze sculptures Bisi, Herm, Vessel, 2023, nor really new in concept and technique or material. Maybe more personal together in the same room, in the middle of the exhibition, in conversation, Vessel, spoon, a caved vessel , protection, it is hard to understand why she has european white features, including the hairdo, more 1950's lost me,  .like in her only portrait seen early.er , Bisi in the same room. only in common the material, oversized sculptures Bisi is a portrait of Bisi, the Nigerian curator from Nigeria now deceased who helped Leigh'career. I am perplexed by the hairdo of an African woman from Nigeria, a european features retro hairdo with hair well white european features flat hairdo not african retro hairdo. Curator going back and forth to Europe and Africa, boat like shape roundish for torso and body is like protection,  More than color of skin it is culture that separate us  first view is a protector for a child size person like a robe to hide into Material ceramic alows color always monochrome.There are a lot of references in Leigh's art: mythology, greek, roman, egyptian art, but also French ... with pannier, and also the colossal blue again ... favors simple shapes and smooth surfaces.  paisible symbol of ... with her perfect ... African direct introduction, Africa , and then it is no surprise bathed into the ... without thinking, get into the mood the works of the artist, and her sculptures, giant, tall if not disctracted by a few smaller works like ... or .... along the way.  if jugs cupboard cowrie shells bananas are homely, attribute, references, already hinted found in earler works,  her use of bronze has allowed a new expression, this time of elencees, female curves , or filiforms, also in common a mute face blind or deaf inwrd turned.  what is work achieving , discussion with Okoro 

 

 

"Drawing in Space": Richard Serra at Glenstone

 

Located on 230 acres in Potomac, Maryland, Glenstone, largest private contemporary art museum in the United States, is a venue where architecture and nature blend in  perfect harmony. Curves and lines from the rolling hills and the minimalist buildings, design a landscape colored by patches of violet grass and yellow wild flowers. Birdsongs are an invitation to walk along the trails and discover the collection of outdoor sculptures. Spring is a perfect time for a visit. 

Among the artists, Richard Serra is represented by three sculptures closely intertwined with the history of the site. The planned addition of Sylvester, 2001, influenced the selection of material and shape of the Gallery designed by the architect Charles Gwathmey. Like an anchor, the massive sculpture permanently located near the building, was first displayed in 2001 at the Gagosian gallery for the exhibition "Torqued Spirals, Toruses, and Spheres". Named after the British art critic David Sylvester, the work, part of the famous Torqued Spiral series, offers a unique experience while walking around and in the sculpture. The entrance is a narrow triangular passage shaped by the unstable edge of the curled sheet of steel. The more than thirteen foot high walls with inward and outward twists allow the light to project like a ribbon in between, and create during the walk a succession of geometric shapes  born from the interplay between metal and sky. Visitors' voices and steps resonate in the claustrophobic space. In the heart of the sculpture, surrounded by the rough rusty metal, the only escape for the gaze is through an oculus filled with the blue-grey sky. Serra's comment "I am using a ton of steel to attain lightness" could not be more appropriate for this piece. 

The trails in the woods become a zigzaggy boardwalk set over a stream and a marshy field to reach a pavilion. Of small size, it is imposing due to its thick concrete walls and wide open dark entrance. The building was designed by the architect Thomas Phifer in collaboration with the artist to house Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, 2017. Inside,  the cold grey bare concrete of the walls and the floor is warmed up by the orangy-brown Cor-ten steel of the four enormous cylinders arranged in the middle of the space. A soft natural light shines through sheaths of transparent glass supported by the ceiling's massive parallel beams. The imposing cylinders of unequal height and circumference, are of same weight "82 tons - the heaviest form that a foundry is able to forge". Numbers do not matter, they are just huge. The walk around, through, back and forth the installation provides a physical experience of the work, representation of the idea of weight. It also allows to connect with the artist as we share the awe he felt looking at the metal while visiting a boat yard with his father and later working in a steel mill. Benjamin Buchloh's statement in his essay for the catalog of the exhibition "Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years" at MoMA in 2007, feels very pertinent after looking at the work, result from a perfect harmony between the industrial material and the Minimalist aesthetic: "the artist as a designer with a renewed celebration of the artist as an industrial worker".

 Lynne Cooke calls Serra's Contour 290, 2004, "one of his most mercurial works". The site specific sculpture ensconced between two hilly meadows can be approached from different paths but stays remote, a wavy line in the landscape, sometimes obscured by trees when seen from different viewpoints. Located exactly 290 feet above sea-level, following the topography of the land, it required a meticulous mapping and engineering to secure the massive structure (15 feet high, 223 length and 165 tons). Closely involved in the process, the artist walked through the site to plan for the work embedded with nature. It introduces a three dimensional view of the landscape and Serra "was more interested in a penetration into the land that would open the field and bring you into it bodily, not just draw you into it visually". In 2006, the scene was disturbed by changes brought to the trees' alignment. If the steel wall from Te Tuhirangi Contour, 1999-2001, in New Zealand appears in harmony with the site (from photographs), Contour 290 merely acts like an accessory to the landscape.

The term "architectural promenade" coined by Le Corbusier to describe "the intelligibility of a building  given less through axonometric drawing than through the ways one moves through the space", applies perfectly to the visit of Serra's three sculptures "not objects we inspect but arrangements of space in which we move" (Buchloh). Hubris has to be part of the process of creativity, motivating the artist to redesign and domesticate nature with metal. Nature is resilient and follows its own rules but the massive sculptures, which at first sight seem eternal, show some vulnerability with their rusty haptic surface damaged not by the elements or time but by the visitors. Minimalism is about redesigning the space, here Serra "drawing in space" redesigns nature and sky.  Does the sculptures' symbiosis with nature offer more than a casual walk? A spiritual experience? The artist makes his goal clear: "I don't think public sculpture is going to change the world, but I do think it might be a catalyst for thought. To see is to think and to think is to see." 

photographs by the author:

"Sylvester", 2001

"Contour 290", 2004

"Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure", 2017