is widely considered the world's most# important exhibition of contemporary art,## the Venice Biennale.

She was the# first Black woman to have that honor.

Now there's a chance to see her work in# a retrospective touring this country.

Jeffrey Brown meets the artist for# our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Outside the Hirshhorn Museum in# Washington, D.C., a monumental bronze sculpture,## a 24-foot female form titled Satellite,# inside, smaller but no less striking works## in which artist Simone Leigh explores the# representation of Black women by pulling## together different materials and forms# and pulling from different traditions.

SIMONE LEIGH, Artist: It makes# something new.

Sometimes,## it collapses time.

Sometimes, happened over a millennium more obvious.# It's just one of the joys of sculpture.

JEFFREY BROWN: Leigh went really big in# her work and the attention it gained in## 2019 with Brick House, towering# over New York's High Line Park.

The exhibition now in Washington, some 29# works spanning 20 years, mostly sculptures,## but also several videos, was organized by the# Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

It## includes major works that were part of her# acclaimed Venice Biennale project and a few## new ones, heady stuff, perhaps, but, at# 56, Leigh is hardly an overnight success.

SIMONE LEIGH: I was told that I wasn't going# to make it 1,000 times.

So, I think that... JEFFREY BROWN: So, you smiled as you say that.

SIMONE LEIGH: Yes, because there's an idea that## art can be anything, but I was# being told, but it can't be that.

JEFFREY BROWN: That is ceramics, works made# of clay and ravishing glazes, usually shaped## by hand and fired in sometimes enormous kilns.# It wasn't seen as high art by many when she was## starting out, she says, but she loved the labor# that went into it, the control, and lack of it.

SIMONE LEIGH: And the inexhaustibility# of ceramics, even next week,## I don't know exactly what's going to# come out of the kiln.

There's a lot## of unpredictability involved.

I enjoy that.# I enjoy that there's still questions th have that are unanswered about what I can do# with the material and how far I can push it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Leigh was born# and raised in Chicago's South## Side.

Her father immigrated from Jamaica and# serv motifs run through her sculptures,# sometimes in the form of plantains.

She also looks to Africa, including Nigerian# pottery she studied long ago as an intern at## the National Museum of African Art.

Now# such forms become part of a human figure,## as in the sculpture Jug.

In Cupboard,# she combines a cowrie shell,## another favorite motif, with raffia,# the fiber from a type of palm tree.

SIMONE LEIGH: It also refers to kind of# makeshift building and dwelling.

It also... JEFFREY BROWN: But the hut here becomes a skirt.

SIMONE LEIGH: And the hut also become JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

come together as they're carried both by the# material itself and also the JEFFREY BROWN: So, each different kind# of material here is also carrying... SIMONE LEIGH: Carries histories with it, yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Histories.

And her work always begins with ideas of how we# value craft and labor versus art, most of all,## how Black women have been represented,# misrepresented, or simply ignored,## including in popular culture.

Some of her early# work referenced Uhura, a character on "Star Trek."

SIMONE LEIGH: And I remember playing "Star# Trek" with my friends when we were younger,## and we had the complication# of there was only one Black## girl character.

And so we would# fight over who got to be Uhura.

So, it's always been something that,# even subconsciously, I was aware of.

JEFFREY BROWN: Cupboard itself plays off the# racist imagery of Mammy's Cupboard in Natchez,## Mississippi, captured in a# 1941 photo by Edward Weston.

SIMONE LEIGH: I hope that my work# shows a more nuanced, more subtle,## more bold, more complicated, and more# varied representations of Black women.

JEFFREY BROWN: And Leigh reframes colonial# imagery.

She covered the U.S. Pavilion at## Venice with a raffia hut-like facade, an echo to# a 1931 international colonial exhibition in Paris.

In the run-up to the Venice exhibition,## much attention focused on Leigh as the that was important to her, but as part# of a larger community and deeper history.

SIMONE LEIGH: There were many, many# artists before me that would have## shown in the Venice Biennale, Black women# artists, had we had a different I have been thinking recently of the metaphor of a## relay race.

It's just I was the one# th JEFFREY BROWN: Simone Leigh's exhibition is here# until March and then travels to Los Angeles, where## it will show at the Los Angeles County Museum of# Art and the California African American Museum.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown# at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.