Nereya Otieno (Hypersensitivity(2009) reviews Simone Lee’s work. She writes that “Lee’s study, split across two Los Angeles venues, demonstrates the futility of imposing clear-cut roles on black women in a postcolonial world.” Simone Lee’s work is Los Angeles County Museum of Art (5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles) and California African American Museum (600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles) Through January 20, 2025. [The exhibition was organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and co-presented in Los Angeles by Taylor Renee Aldridge (CAAM), Naima Keith (LACMA), and Rita Gonzales (LACMA).] For the full review and additional photos by Otieno, Hypersensitivity.
Showing work from individual artists simultaneously can be difficult to pull off, as show concepts may contradict one another or differences in curatorial vision may obscure the artists’ actual intentions. Simone Leeand a traveling exhibition being held at the same time. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and California African American Museum (CAAM) makes it work.
This comprehensive and thought-provoking exhibition spans a period of nearly two decades and includes Lee’s work at the 2022 Venice Biennale. Its simultaneous presence at two different institutions (one celebrating the Black American story, the other located near glamorous Beverly Hills and showcasing top contemporary art to Los Angeles) brings into focus the concepts that Lee’s work purposefully clashes with. By presenting a cohesive exhibition split into two different coded locations, it demonstrates the futility and ignorance of imposing a clear role on Black women in a postcolonial world. Yes, this is Black art. Yes, this focuses on Black women. Yes, this delves into distant diasporic roots. Yes, this is distinctly American. And yes, this is for you, even if you’re not one of those things.
Lee’s work highlights the forging of form using clay as her signature medium, questioning the material elements of sculpture. By exaggerating or dulling certain aspects of familiar figures, she draws attention to the fact that they are creations, not truths. In one of her CAAM pieces (‘Jug’, 2022), Lee uses a mold made from a watermelon to create a stone tool cowry shell. Cowry shells are a highly valued currency across the African continent, and watermelons have long been used as weapons to denigrate enslaved Africans in the United States. In ‘Jug’, Lee transforms ridicule into wealth, bridging the gap between the values of black people in America and black people in Africa.
Her work also questions the relationship between architecture and humans. Is architecture designed to tap into our imagination, or is it designed to contain us? When we express ourselves or envision others, we create scaffolding for recognition. But are we doing it in a way that supports, or that contains? Her sculptures of black women are sturdy, stoic, and larger than life. The body envelops, and the black woman is the load-bearing column. “Sharifa” (2022) is a bronze sculpture, about 10 feet tall and three feet in diameter, standing high above the viewer with her head bowed modestly. It looks like it could only be toppled by heavy machinery or an act of nature. But many of Lee’s works, including “Sharifa,” are based on real people with feelings, goals, and difficulties – other artists. It is When the rain clouds gatherThe first novel by renowned South African author Bessie Head, “They were afflicted with the same disease, loneliness. But when a grown woman cried, her hot tears could melt the iron rods that were her spine.”
The solidity of Lee’s black women – physically massive and massive in scale, iron bars and spines – exaggerates them but does not sexualize them. Their curves are not obscene, but rather geometric, foundational, protective, powerful and often purposeful. This is Lee’s architectural practice. They are beautiful, they have presence, they occupy space, but they do not belong to the viewer. In fact, their sense of privacy and unknowability evokes a certain amount of envy in me. Take for example “Bisi” (2022), a bust without arms and a mannequin-like head looming, its lower half resembling the hiding skirt of the Sugar Plum Fairy in a Nutcracker. The facial features do not betray her anonymity, making her story her own. Most of Lee’s sculptures have vague features that for me erase the importance of the viewer’s perception. All of Lee’s figurative sculptures seem to belong primarily to the sculpture itself (even if one can seek refuge within her bell forms), raising the question of whether the same can be said for the viewer. [. . .]
For the full review and more photos by Nereya Otieno, https://hyperallergic.com/951761/simone-leigh-monuments-to-the-black-femme/
[Shown above, photos by Nereya Otieno/Hyperallergic: 1) Installation view of “Sharifa” (2022) and “Conspiracy” (2022) in Simone Leigh at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 2) “Jug” (2022), stoneware.]
