Such As We, Leone and Macdonald: Ten Years of Collaboration

Working collaboratively since 1988, New York artists Hillary Leone and Jennifer Macdonald address some of the most pressing social and political issues of the day. Turning their attention to the AIDS pandemic, censorship, and the marginalization of those viewed as “different” in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and economic class, they created beautiful and aesthetically complex objects and installations. Resisting the over-simplified rhetoric often associated with activist art, Leone & Macdonald addressed the issues of “identity politics” by asking questions rather than making statements, often casting new light on cultural understandings as they are shaped by traditional forms of representation.

“Such As We” included objects and installations executed in a wide variety of media, from paper, glass, metals and video, to fire, sand and needlework, and included the installations “Speaking Secrets”, “Untitled (Private Parts, Sex Studies, Obscenity Series)”, and “Passing”. These works lay bare, amplify, hybridize, reorganize and disassemble representational practices in order to multiply meanings around these sensitive subjects.