New York, NY, December 29, 2011 – 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 features Leigh’s most recent explorations of materiality, women’s work, and Afro-futurism in sculptur... Read more
New York, NY, December 29, 2011 – 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 features Leigh’s most recent explorations of materiality, women’s work, and Afro-futurism in sculpture, video, and site-specific installation. Curated by Rashida Bumbray, the exhibition will be on view from January 18 through March 11, 2012. There will be an opening reception for the exhibition at The Kitchen (512 West 19th Street) on Wednesday, January 18, from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M.
The Kitchen’s gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 12:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. and Saturday, 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. Admission is free.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a free performance event will take place in The Kitchen’s theater on Monday, February 13, 7:00 P.M. Check The Kitchen’s website (thekitchen.org) for details and updates.
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.

Simone Leigh is a recipient of many grants and awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Sculptors (2011) The Art Matters Foundation grant and the New York Foundation for the Arts award for Sculpture. She has been a resident at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2010– 2011), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program, The Henry Street Settlement and the Bronx Museum AIM program. Leigh’s work has been exhibited at The Studio Museum in Harlem, SculptureCenter, The Kitchen, The National Gallery of Zimbabwe (Harare, Zimbabwe), Jack Tilton Gallery, L’Appartement22 (Rabat, Morocco) The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, PA) and the AVA Gallery (Cape Town, South Africa).
Leigh is the founder and co-curator of The Be Black Baby party hosted by Recess Activities. Reviews of her work have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Modern Painters, Art 21 and Art Info. For more information, go to http://simoneleigh.com/.
