Exquisitely crafted and making clear reference to post-minimalism, Simone Leigh questions the bourgeois strategy of that formalist movement, which favored materiality over cultural meaning. The titles of these works mirror this formal disconnect, referencing the "Cake Walk" dance that was adopted by white, southern society. The cake walk was actually created by slaves to mock the strut of their masters. But just as the slave masters did not care what the dance was meant to emulate, the essentialism of minimalist and post-minimalist masters did not take into account either the national origin of their raw materials or the ethnocentric grounding of many forms considered to be essential or aesthetically pure. By		    
   


remaining conscious of the economic and social connotations of her sculptural forms, Leigh not only evokes an underlying history of colonialism, but she also reminds us of its presence in an art world that continues to coolly reject any reminders of the world outside of its self.
Simone Leigh has shown her work at the Jamaica Arts Center, Queens, NY; Baltimore Clayworks,; Rush Arts, Brooklyn, NY; The Center for African American Art, Charlottesville, NC, and the Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, among others. She is a graduate of Earlham College.

  
   

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