Modern Painters

FROM TOP: COSEY FANNI TUTTI AND CABINET, LONDON; H&R BLOCK ARTSPACE AT THE KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE102 MODERN PAINTERS JUNE/JULY 2016BLOUINARTINFO.COMKANSAS CITY, MISSOURI``````Simone LeighH&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute // February 6–March 26``````INCLUDING A SERIES of terra-cotta, stoneware, and porcelainobjects, as well as the artist’swell-known videos featuringLieutenant Uhura of StarTrek—one of the very firstmajor roles portrayed by ablack woman, Nichelle Nichols,on television—Leigh’sexhibition moves from theancient past into a projectedfuture. Within this temporalframework, time is stretchedand reassembled to connecthistories, shapes, andmaterials in subtle conversa-tions about form and function.Three Way (Water Pots),2016, is inspired by a 1933diorama from Kansas City’sNelson-Atkins Museum thatfeatured a wax representationof famed Pueblo potter MariaMartinez, who reframed theperception of Native Americanpottery from functionalhandicraft to aesthetic objectthrough her craft and advocacyefforts. Whereas the originaldiorama placed Martinez infront of a painted South-western landscape of vasthorizons, presenting her as acurious object akin to thoseshe made, Leigh’s abstractedversion sets nine pit-fired``````terra-cotta pots into clustersof three in a mirrored room.Martinez and her diorama, likeall the references in Leigh’swork, are places to touchdown, but not settle into. Thus,the reflected image of thepots, cast through an illusionof infinite space, speaks tothe long history of ceramics.Three Way finds acompanion piece in the three-channel projection Untitled(The Waiting Room series),2016, in which cultural anthro-pologist and dancer AimeeMeredith Cox peers out from ahuman-size terra-cotta vessel.She spins with the vessel, pro-pelled by an unseen potter’swheel. A midrange shot pre-sents her at rest, and the lastvideo in the set shows herenclosed at full length. WaitingRoom evokes a series of meta-phors: the body as a containerfor the soul, the female bodyas a sexual and procreativevessel, and references to slavenarratives in which terra-cotta pots hid runaway slavesen route to freedom.Contemporary diasporicmovements are conjured inWall, 2016, constructed of the“Ghana Must Go” bags, the``````in choosing pornography as her subject matter was to bringattention to her virtuoso painting. 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Diptychphotograph, eachpanel 33½ x 47¼ in.Simone LeighInstallation view ofThree Way (WaterPots), 2016. Terra-cotta and mirror.