Simone Leigh "You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been"

The Kitchen

poster for Simone Leigh "You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been"

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The Kitchen presents the New York premiere of You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been, a solo exhibition by sculptor and video-maker Simone Leigh. The exhibition, curated by Rashida Bumbray, features Leigh’s most recent explorations of materiality, women’s work, and Afro-futurism in sculpture, video, and site-specific installation.

Known for her archaic anthropomorphic sculptural forms in porcelain, terracotta, tobacco, glass, and steel, in addition to video and media-based works, Leigh’s practice often interrogates the notion of art—especially craftwork and sculpture—as merely decorative. She investigates the processes and cultural histories of constructing objects, bringing handmade ceramic vessels together with re-purposed found objects in order to put forth a dialogue between the aesthetically beautiful and brutally utilitarian.
Leigh’s practice employs early African ceramic techniques to evoke contemporary parallels and underlying social and economic conditions. For You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been, the artist draws from the symbolic and political traditions of a diversity of influences—from early African-American face jugs and the manifesto of Africobra to Star Trek and Gilbert and Sullivan—in order to explore the slippages among multifarious cultural, political, and colonial histories that have laid claim to marginalized bodies. You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been will include three new bodies of work: sculptural chandelier installations, bust sculptures, and a video collaboration with artist Chitra Ganesh, featuring a musical score created and performed by Kaoru Watanabe. Leigh’s work was previously exhibited at The Kitchen as part of The Future As Disruption, a group exhibition that took place in Summer 2008.

Media

Schedule

from January 18, 2012 to March 11, 2012
A free performance event on Monday, February 13, 7:00 P.M.

Opening Reception on 2012-01-18 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Simone Leigh

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