Curator’s Tour: Simone Leigh

FREE

Meet at the Information Desk in the Lobby

Hirshhorn curator Anne Reeve will walk visitors through the exhibition Simone Leigh, which highlights work from the artist’s landmark presentation representing the United States at the 2022 Venice Biennale alongside key ceramic, bronze, and video works from throughout her career.

About the Exhibition

For over two decades, Leigh has embraced a polyphonic artistic vocabulary that elaborates on Black feminist thought, an intellectual tradition that values and centers the experiences of Black women. Informed by a rigorous attention to a wide swath of historical periods, geographies, and artistic traditions of Africa and the African diaspora, Leigh often combines the female body with domestic vessels or architectural elements to point to unacknowledged acts of labor and care, particularly among and for Black women. For her presentation at the Hirshhorn, the artist has included three new bronze sculptures, Bisi, Herm, and Vessel (2023) in the galleries. Leigh’s monumental bronze Satellite (2022), which stood sentry outside the US Pavilion in Venice, has been installed at the southern entrance to the Hirshhorn to signal the exhibition’s arrival.

If you have questions or a request for access services or accommodations that can make your experience more inclusive, please contact hirshhornexperience@si.edu. One to two weeks advance notice is recommended but not required.