CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/20/2023

Groundbreaking and expansive: 'Simone Leigh'

“Cupboard IX” (2019) is reproduced from Simone Leigh, the first major monograph on the influential American artist, published on the occasion of her touring exhibition en route from ICA Boston to the Hirschhorn and LACMA through 2025. Tracing the arc of her work in ceramic, bronze, raffia, video and social sculpture alongside “writings and ideas [that] are inextricably entwined with her art,” this is essential reading, according to curator Eva Respini, “that provides a series of pathways to consider Leigh’s groundbreaking, expansive art.” She continues: “In 2013 Leigh penned a manifesto, positing an art world in which her work might circulate: ‘I imagine a future where auto-ethnographic initiatives documenting “local forms” of craft and vernacular knowledge would exist across the world. . . . I foresee a time when Black artists will be encouraged to dive deep into their work . . . without this strange, accompanying commentary and gatekeeping.’ All along, Leigh has been sculpting her own time, looping her own histories, with a clear vision of what the future will bring.”