Sentinel © Simone Leigh, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo by Timothy Schenck
9 rooms in Materials and Objects
In 2019, Simone Leigh created a series of sculptures which combine the torso and head of a woman with the architecture of a dwelling place or shelter
The title of this work, Sentinel, emerged from a conversation between Leigh and the author and poet Saidiya Hartman. It suggests a guard who is keeping watch. Later the same year, Hartman wrote the following poem. It offers one possible interpretation of Sentinel.
An Inventory of Upheaval
The methods of struggle are improvised in the cell,
improvised in the air, improvised from nothing.
Is the riot like the general strike a bridge between now and
the free territory?
Radical thought takes the form of riotous sound and fanciful
modes of reasoning.
The enclosure provides the field for heroic deeds.
Was anarchy merely the expression of love and care? Of
stealing themselves away?
The beautiful sentinels are gathered.
They dream a new set of arrangements. They dream the end
of involuntary servitude.
The riot seeks to preserve nothing.
The methods of struggle are improvised in the air.
– Saidiya Hartman, 2019