I can admit, not proudly, that I forgot to do the readings assigned before our class visit to the Luhring Augustine gallery in Chelsea. As a result, I did not have an astute insight into the business world of art nor the work of Simone Leigh. I didn’t know that Leigh was the finalist for the Hugo Boss prize nor the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant. Yet, sometimes I like going into things spontaneously without any prior knowledge of what I am getting myself into. I find it exciting; I use only my five senses at that very moment to put together my own picture of what the gallery represents to me. Think about the first time you walked into Central Park. Maybe you heard from others that it was a ginormous forest filled with apparatuses, ponds and geological structures. Still, you cannot get a sense of what it is until you have walked through it. When you find yourself sitting in the Lawn of Central Park, you understand its surreal beauty, one that can’t be captivated in a picture or a story. I felt the same way when walking through Leigh’s first exhibition with the Luhring Augustine gallery. Initially, I did find it intimidating to put together the puzzle pieces of what the Leigh was trying to convey through her sculptures. But that’s why I found her gallery so amusing.
Of the thirteen pieces on view, ten were female busts. Clearly, Leigh wanted to use the sculptures as the vessel of female identities, particularly African female identities. This was cleverly shown through facial features on sculptures and the use of outer garments. I found myself most attracted to a bronze sculpture, placed near the entrance of the gallery, called “No Face.” Unlike most of Leigh’s sculptures “No Face”, hence the name of its title, had no face. It is a smooth ovoid sculpture resting on a dark, furnished, columnar neck made of bronze. There was no identity connected to this sculpture. I couldn’t make out its gender or race. I peered into its hollow head and found only a velvety, seductive blackness. The blackness enveloped me, and I found myself staring inside of the hole as if it was one that had no bottom or end. There was a lack of expression on this sculpture, unlike the others, and I could not help wondering why Leigh wanted to portray this. The abstracted, stylized minimalism of the sculpture may have been Leigh’s way of expressing a lack of identity for black females in the art world. She specifically placed this sculpture near the entrance to show her audience something that lacks a face but eventually opens up as the audience gazes at statues, deeper in the gallery, that show vulnerability and strength through their stances and wrinkled abdomens. I hope I have the chance to own a piece like “No Face” someday so I could stare at the beauty of its neverending chasm and lack of identity whenever I want to find solace in myself.
No Face
