Simone Leigh

Simone Leigh’s practice incorporates sculpture, video, and installation; all are informed by her ongoing exploration of black female-identified subjectivity. Leigh works in a mode she describes as auto-ethnographic. Her objects often employ materials and forms traditionally associated with African art; her performance-influenced installations create spaces where historical precedent and self-determination commingle.

Hugo Boss Prize 2018 Simone Leigh

Leigh was born in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. Recent projects and exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial (2019) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; ‘Trigger: Gender as a Tool and as a Weapon’ (2017) at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; ‘Psychic Friends Network’ (2016) at Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, London; ‘The Waiting Room’ (2016) at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; ‘The Free People’s Medical Clinic’ (2014) a project commissioned by Creative Time; a public installation presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem at Marcus Garvey Park, New York; and a solo exhibition at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017). 

Leigh is the first artist to be commissioned for the High Line Plinth; her monumental sculpture ‘Brick House’ was unveiled in April 2019. Leigh’s work was featured in ‘Loophole of Retreat’, a major exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, to commemorate her achievements as the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize 2018.