Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton, Courtesy de Young Museum
WORKING WITH TRADITIONAL ceramic and wood-carving methods from Western and Central Africa, Leilah Babirye (b. 1985) makes contemporary sculptures that are all her own. She produces hand-built ceramic busts with dynamic glazes and uses a chain saw and gouges, whittles, and scorches wood to form masks and ebonized totemic sculptures. The expressive works are portraits representing her LGBTQ+ community.
Born in Kampala, Uganda, Babirye lives and works in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Calif., is her first solo museum exhibition in the United States. She is presenting 12 sculptures composed of ceramic, wood, and discarded objects such as chains, bicycle tires, nails, screws, and wire. Three of the works were created specifically for the de Young show.
“Leilah Babirye is an artist who’s drawing on history, but building and innovating in this contemporary moment. There’s so much playfulness, and fearlessness in how she approaches clay, and her sculptures,” Natasha Becker, the de Young’s curator of African art said in a museum video the museum made about the artist.
“It’s not only about this monumentality and the size of the sculptures, but it’s really about how much space Leilah Babirye is creating for queer people, for queer community. And that is quite extraordinary.”
“Leilah Babirye is an artist who’s drawing on history, but building and innovating in this contemporary moment. There’s so much playfulness, and fearlessness in how she approaches clay, and her sculptures.”
— de Young Curator Natasha Becker
LEILAH BABIRYE, “Baawala from the Kuchu Mamba (Lungfish) Clan,” 2022 (glazed ceramic, bicycle tire inner tubes, and aluminum wire, 89 x 23 x 22 inches / 226.1 x 58.4 x 55.9 cm).| Photo by Gary Sexton. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Leilah Babirye, 2022. | Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Mark Hartman
Growing up, Babirye said her parents knew she was gay, but they never talked about it. The more involved she became with the queer community, the more vocal and activist she became, the situation with her family at home was further strained. Eventually, her father told her not to return.
“My dad, he just sent me a letter. Don’t come back home,” Babirye said in the video. “So that frustration now took me to just burning all my work. I would collect old trash, put it in my work and then put it on fire. But that wasn’t working. It wasn’t making any sense. So I started just creating beautiful work out of trash. That took me to another level, to where I am now.”
After she was outed in a local newspaper in 2015, Babirye left Uganda. She sought asylum in the United States, which was granted in 2018 with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project.
Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. Shown, from left, LEILAH BABIRYE, “Prince Ggamotoka from the Kuchu Royal Family of Buganda,” 2021; and LEILAH BABIRYE, “Nakalyango from the Kuchu Ngo (Leopard) Clan,” 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton, Courtesy de Young Museum
Babirye’s work stands as an enduring refuge. Characterized by dramatic, geometric features resembling African masks, her sculptures draw on the gender fluidity of Dogon ancestral figures. The sculptures are engaging works with individual personas that she nurtures into being.
“I listen to my work. I respond to whatever they say. They say something. They speak,” Babirye said in the video. “There are times I have to leave my house just to come and see if they’re okay.”
Over the past couple of years, Babirye’s work has garnered attention in the United States and Europe. Her public commissions include the Public Art Fund’s “Black Atlantic,” a group presentation in Brooklyn Bridge Park (2022) and Frieze Sculpture, where she installed her first bronze sculpture, “Gyagenda,” in The Regents Park in London (2023). Currently, Babirye is featured in the 60th Venice Biennale’s international exhibition curated by Adriano Pedrosa in Venice, Italy. “Leilah Babirye: Obumu (Unity)” is also on view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, UK, through Sept. 8.
At the de Young, “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History” presents sculptures produced between 2019 and 2024, in dialogue with the museum’s historical African art collection. Becker said: “Reclaiming identity, reclaiming belonging, reclaiming community, through history, through culture, through art, is really the most powerful message in the show.” CT
Leilah Babirye: We Have a History is on view at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Calif., from June 22, 2024-June 22, 2025
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Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. Shown, LEILAH BABIRYE, “Nakimbugwe from the Kuchu Royal Family of Buganda,” 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton. Image Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
LEILAH BABIRYE, “Nakimbugwe from the Kuchu Royal Family of Buganda,” 2024 (ceramic, wood, copper, wire, and bicycle tyre inner tubes, 41 x 18 x 18 inches / 104.14 x 45.72 x 45.72 cm). | Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York, and Gordon Robichaux, New York. Photo by Randy Dodson, Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton. Image Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
LEILAH BABIRYE, “Senga Muzanganda (Auntie Muzanganda),” 2020 (glazed ceramic, wire and found objects, 55 x 22 1/2 x 17 1/8 inches / 139.7 x 57.15 x 43.51 cm). | Property of a Private Collection, Boston. Photo by Greg Carideo. Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York and Gordon Robichaux, New York
Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History”, de Young, San Francisco, 2024. Shown, LEILAH BABIRYE, “Senga Muzanganda (Auntie Muzanganda),” 2020. | Photo by Gary Sexton. Image Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
LEILAH BABIRYE, “Katiiti Kalibbala from the Nsenene (Grasshopper) Clan,” 2024 (ceramic, bicycle tyre inner tubes, and copper wire, 36 H x 22 L x 16 W inches (braid descends 52 inches from the top). | Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York, and Gordon Robichaux, New York. Photo by Randy Dodson, Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton. Image Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
LEILAH BABIRYE, “Omugole Omukyala Namirembe Kaddulubale (Peaceful Bride of Mwanga II),” 2020 (wood, wax, nails, wire, glue and found objects, 96 1/8 x 36 5/8 x 11 3/4 inches / 244.16 x 93.03 x 29.84 cm). | Collection of Steve Corkin & Dan Maddalena. Photo by Mark Blower. Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York and Gordon Robichaux, New York
Installation view of “Leilah Babirye: We Have a History,” de Young Museum, San Francisco, Calif., 2024. | Photo by Gary Sexton. Image Courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
BOOKSHELF
“Leilah Babirye” was published on the occasion of the aritst’s solo exhibitions at Gordon Robichaux (2020) and Stephen Friedman Gallery (2021). The fully illustrated monograph includes contributions by Lauren O’Neill-Butler and Rianna Jade Parker.
