Currents: Basse Terre by Simone Leigh
Ongoing
To showcase New-York Historical’s continuing tradition of collecting art and objects in the present day, the Museum is proud to display recent acquisitions in Currents, on view on the first floor.
The Brooklyn-based artist Simone Leigh draws upon forms, techniques, and visual cues from across Africa and its diaspora—the communities of descendants scattered around the globe—to reflect on continuity and change. The title of the bust on view refers to one of the Guadeloupe islands in the Caribbean. One of Leigh’s central themes is the black female body as a “repository of lived experience” containing strength, knowledge, and healing wisdom. Here, the body’s beehive shape and textured surface reference the traditional mud dwellings made by the Musgum people of Cameroon and Chad. The eyeless features suggest an inner life that we, the viewers, cannot fully apprehend.
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Location
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West at 77th Street
New York NY 10024 US