leslie hewitt maps bodies of water in sculptural bronze at dia: bridgehampton

site-specific installation at dia: Bridgehampton

Leslie Hewitt exhibits a new body of work conceived for Dia Bridgehampton, which comprises a material reinterpretation of the bodies of water along Long Island’s East End. Four low-profile sculptures are distributed laterally within and outside the gallery, while an accompanying musical score was composed in collaboration with artist Jamal Cyrus. Suggesting naturally formed boulders, the four objects map their site spatially, while the diagrammatic score, in turn, maps the site sonically.

Leslie Hewitt and Jamal Cyrus invited artists Rashida Bumbray, Jason Moran, and Immanuel Wilkins to interpret the score at venues in both New York City and on the East End of Long Island throughout the yearlong run of the show. The exhibition opened on June 24th, 2022, and will be on view through June 5th, 2023.

Leslie Hewitt, installation view, Dia Bridgehampton, New York, 2022. Image by Don Stahl

leslie hewitt sculpts a series of spatial mappings

Inside the gallery at Dia Bridgehampton, Leslie Hewitt references bodies of water on Long Island with three bronze sculptures — namely, the Mecox, Peconic, and Shinnecock bays — in relation to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. A fourth sculpture is installed on the grounds of the gallery which consists of a locally sourced boulder — formed similarly to the bays, by the interplay of sand and water over epochs — upon which is embedded a matte bronze silhouette facing the sky. 

The artist follows the theorization of scholar Tiffany Lethabo King, which explores shoals as a locus of resistance to settlers’ conquest and worldview. With this, visitors are directed to ‘where land and sea have met and re-formed each other across epochs and generations.’

Leslie Hewitt, installation view, Dia Bridgehampton, New York, 2022. Image by Don Stahl

a sonic mapping

Alongside these sculptures, the musical score is displayed on a monitor as a newly developed still-life. A wooden tambourine juxtaposes an iridescent shell, while a string of metadata scrolls by and sound emanates. The display is thus an investigation of how the ‘indeterminate logic of Fluxus notations’ can be a method of ‘exploring the intersections of experimental music, notions of the Black radical tradition, and the elemental sounds, patterns, and breaks of the ocean as it meets the shore.‘

‘These new works by Hewitt extend Dia Bridgehampton’s long-standing engagement with the histories of its immediate site and surrounding geographies,’ said Jessica Morgan, Dia’s Nathalie de Gunzburg Director. ‘With remarkable restraint, Hewitt simultaneously evokes the vastness of the landscape as well as the ways in which histories are made through the ebb and flow of day-to-day life over time.’

Leslie Hewitt, Untitled (Basin Hmm, Hum, or Hymn), 2022 © Leslie Hewitt and Perrotin. Image by Don Stahl