Leilah Babirye

Interpretation

Here artist Leilah Babirye worked debris into ceramic, developing a new form. Its distorted appearance suggests the pain Babirye and others in the LGBTQ community in Uganda experienced after the government passed anti-gay legislation in 2014. Babirye fled to the US, receiving asylum with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.

Acquisition details

This is a promised gift from New York-based collectors Avo Samuelian and Hector Manuel Gonzalez. A promised gift does not belong to the museum, but Samuelian and Gonzalez have signed an agreement pledging to give this sculpture at a later mutually agreed-upon date.

Promised gifts like this one can allow donors to live with works they have collected while also offering the museum access to those objects for display. This arrangement lets the museum recognize the current significance of Babirye’s practice by showing her work now. In this particular instance, exhibiting the work also reinforces the museum’s antiracist collecting initiatives, which are gradually strengthening our holdings of contemporary African art.

-Dominic Molon, Richard Brown Baker Curator of Contemporary Art