Leslie Hewitt Untitled (Median) 2013

Leslie Hewitt’s Still Life series comprises large, framed photographs that are placed on the floor leaning against the wall. The weighty, sculptural quality that the works take on in this arrangement relate to Hewitt’s interest in the paradoxical nature of photographs as both substantive, physical objects and vessels for weightless, immaterial imagery. Untitled (Median) depicts a spare assortment of objects––a maple wood board, found snapshots, and stacked books, including James Baldwin’s seminal 1963 text The Fire Next Time. Considered a landmark in the history of literature addressing racial politics in the United States, the book interacts with the other elements in the image to convey a sense of how private, individual experience is invariably embedded within broader social contexts replete with undercurrents of political upheaval. The lemon that appears in Untitled (Median) alludes to the artist’s interest in 17th-century Dutch still-life painting; like Hewitt’s leaning photographs, this tradition often features casually strewn objects that exude intimacy while bearing veiled references to contemporaneous sociopolitical tensions.  
Identification
Title
Untitled (Median)
Production Date
2013
Object Number
2015.3
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and PAMM Ambassadors for Black Art
Copyright
© 2022 Leslie Hewitt. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli
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Physical Qualities
Medium
Digital chromogenic print in custom maple frame
Dimensions
49 1/2 x 59 1/2 inches
Visual Description
Untitled (Median) from the Still Life Series by Leslie Hewitt is a chromogenic print, or photograph inside a roughly square maple wooden frame. Overall, it measures forty-nine inches tall by fifty-nine inches wide. This is roughly equal to a four by five-foot rectangle. The photograph is presented in landscape orientation, meaning the longer side runs along the gallery floor. This artwork is part photograph and part sculpture. The wooden frame does not hang on the gallery wall. Instead, it is placed on the floor, about six inches from the wall. The piece leans back against the wall at a slight angle. This is intentional, as the photograph’s composition is meant to align with the floor. The photograph shows a square panel of untreated wood, resting on a stack of three books. The books are stacked on a wooden floor against a white wall. The large wooden square leans against the white wall. At a particular angle, the floor line of the photograph aligns with the floor line of the gallery, making the photograph look like a three-dimensional installation instead of a flat, two-dimensional artwork. The wooden square is centered in the photograph, with a little over a foot of white wall surrounding it on all sides. The wood shows its natural grain and untreated beige color. The white wall the square leans on is featureless, save for a strip of baseboard molding no more than 6 inches tall at the bottom, where the wall meets the polished slats of a wooden floor. The three books that form the pedestal for the wooden square could easily be grasped with one hand. The topmost book has its spine turned outward to face the viewer, revealing its title and author. This book is The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin. The bottom two books’ text blocks face outward. To the right of the stacked books, is a single bright yellow lemon with a wedge carved out of it, exposing the white pith and yellow juice sacs within. To the left of the books is a single photograph, turned at an angle so that its top side faces the lemon to its right.
Leslie Hewitt
Leslie Hewitt — b. 1977, St. Albans, New York; lives in New York
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