Exhibition: Monument Eternal, Le’Andra LeSeur

In Monument Eternal, Le’Andra LeSeur dissects the ways that monuments erected to commemorate racist legacies have altered the mental psyche of Black communities. The artist contemplates how this alteration manifests in the physical body, especially when presented with, and situated in, the sonic rhythms that reverberate across these sites of violence. Comprising a new series of work co-commissioned with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the exhibition marks LeSeur’s first institutional solo presentation in New York.

Monument Eternal centers on a titular video inspired by Stone Mountain in Georgia—a public park distinguished by a three-acre-wide carving that depicts Confederate leaders on horseback, begun in 1923 and completed in 1972. In spite of this, the park remains the state’s most popular attraction, frequented by local residents and tourists alike for its recreational offerings. LeSeur spent the majority of her adolescence in Atlanta and recalls many family gatherings at Stone Mountain. She began researching the site’s history after revisiting it as an adult in 2017 and started to consider its corporeal impact, which eventually gave way to this series.

A poetic translation of the body in collapse, the video stitches together slow-motion captures of the artist falling, unabated and repeatedly, on the mountain’s peak. The work borrows its title from an abridged autobiography written by Alice Coltrane, in which the avant-garde composer recounts her journey through physical and mental tests continuously self-imposed in the pursuit of spiritual transcendence. Similarly, LeSeur pushes herself to extreme physical limits within her own performance practice, as a way of confronting, and subsequently transcending historical acts of violence as a queer Black person. This process of perseverance and self-discovery is captured within the spoken word poetry written and narrated by LeSeur, which provides the basis for the film’s score.

In the artist’s own words: “My work aims for a more intentional and sensitive connection to, participation with, and activation of, sites of violence, sparking continuous dialogue around the impact these sites have had on Black communities. This work is communal, historical, social, political, and environmental. It is, for me, health care. At the core of this project, I introduce new forms of healing and reconciliation within the midst of trauma and violence, through repeated gestures and the transformation of sound into a physical presence. My practice continuously considers ways in which art can transform violence into something beyond. Monument Eternal transforms memories of violence, remnants of violence, and even physical embodiments of violence into transcendences.”

Accompanying the video installation are other multi-medium pieces created by the artist through her experiential remembrance of recent encounters with Stone Mountain, including a painting completed during LeSeur's 2023 residency at Pioneer Works. While visiting the monument, LeSeur observed her bodily reactions—for instance, a nervous flick of her hand—and took note of the way that she breathed as she walked around the site. These movements, emotions and feelings are translated into mark-marking gestures on paintings and drawings and provided a rhythmic baseline for how LeSeur blew into glass during the creation of the sculptural works. In doing so, LeSeur captures natural responses, otherwise imperceptible to others, into tangible records that surpass the limits of time and place.

About the Artist

Le’Andra LeSeur (b. 1989 in Bronx, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work encompasses a range of media including video, installation, photography, painting, and performance. Her body of work, a celebration of Blackness, queerness, and femininity, seeks to dismantle systems of power and achieve transcendence and liberation through perseverance. Through the insertion of her body and voice into her work, LeSeur provides her audience with an opportunity to contemplate themes such as identity, family, Black grief and joy, the experience of invisibility, and what it means to take up space as a queer Black woman—a rejection of the stereotypes which attempt to push these identities to the margins. The artist has received several notable awards including the Tulsa Artist Fellowship (2024), Leslie-Lohman Museum Artists Fellowship (2019), the Time-Based Medium Prize as well as the Juried Grand Prize at Artprize 10 (2018). LeSeur has appeared in conversation with Marilyn Minter at the Brooklyn Museum, presented by the Tory Burch Foundation, and has lectured at The New School, NY, NY and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, among others. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at MFA Boston, Boston, MA; Swivel Gallery, NY, NY; The Shed, New York, NY; Marlborough, New York, NY; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Assembly Room, New York, NY; Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Arnika Dawkins, Atlanta, GA; and others. Residencies include Pioneer Works, iLab at The University of the Arts, Visual Studies Workshop, ArcAthens, NARS Foundation, Marble House Project, and MASS MoCA.

Le’Andra LeSeur: Monument Eternal is co-commissioned by Pioneer Works and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and curated by Vivian Chui. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, as well as the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Dates: September 6 - December 15, 2024