Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

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Sometimes I think Simone Leigh and I always have been in conversation. Several years ago, I contacted her when I was a Contributing Editor for Collaboration and Its Discontents, a book about artist collaborations published by The Courtauld Institute of Art. I decided to interview Leigh and Liz Magic Laser about their 2011 film Breakdown. Because the discussion had been so fluid and we wanted to continue roaming over ideas so key to our lives and to our parallel practices, Leigh then asked me to interview her for the Herb Alpert Award for Visual Art. It was 2016 and Leigh had had a stunning year. She received the Herb Alpert directly on the heels of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. She could have asked anyone to interview her, but she contacted me. Leigh and I share so much, a strong Jamaican heritage, a love of Maine, a deep knowledge of Zora Neale Hurston and yet Years of Seeing Red will be our first one-on-one talk. Early last year, I curated the critically acclaimed exhibition Vanishing Points exploring the visibility and invisibility of identity in our proto-digital and digital ages. Included was a wall-size artist manifesto by Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter, a collective founded by Leigh. A panel discussion with a few members of the group highlighted not only Leigh’s founding role, but also how she has acted as a mentor for now hundreds of black women artists. This discussion will focus on Leigh’s practice, on her formal and material interrogations as well as the pivotal role of black women in the face of much needed social justice.

Andrianna Campbell on her working relationship with artist Simone Leigh. For this program, organized in collaboration with Denniston Hill, Campbell and Leigh will speak in-depth about Leigh's artistic practice.

 

This event is free and open to the public, though seating is limited. To attend, please RSVP to rsvp@curatorsintl.org with SIMONE in the subject line.

 

This program is part of a collaboration between ICI and Denniston Hill‘s Artist Residency program. Andrianna Campbell was in residence in 2017 at Denniston Hill, located in the southern Catskills.

 

Presenters
Simone Leigh

Simone Leigh’s practice incorporates sculpture, video, and installation, all informed by her ongoing exploration of black female subjectivity and ethnography.

Andrianna Campbell

Andrianna Campbell, a Denniston Hill alumna, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she specializes in art of the modern and contemporary period.


Credits

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.