Leonardo Benzant

My practice is driven by my connection to the trans African-Atlantic diaspora. I recognize both my ties and disjunction from an ancestral past by considering the possibilities of genetic imprints, cultural identification, innate and intuitive beliefs and a conscious seeking of links that reveal continuities that are hidden or largely unsuspected by the mainstream. I imagine myself as an Urban Shaman exploring both my familiar visible world and the hidden dimensions of other realms that lurk beneath the surface of daily life. The sense of personal cosmology in my practice grows from both experiencing and observing the details of everyday life and ritual. Artworks emerge out of the crossroads of life, history, memory, and imagination, a place between that suggest multiple layers of meaning. Inspiration is derived, in part, from the various modes of communication that I have studied and encountered in African-derived rituals

Leonardo Benzant: Across Seven Ruins and Redemptions Somo Kamarioka

November 10, 2021 to January 8, 2022

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"The paintings are a type of mirror as they are created from tracing parts of the sculptures. This reflects both the Kongo traditions of connecting to a twin-self in the spiritual world and creating an ideographic writing system. As an alias to the Urban Shaman, Somo Kamarioka is a creolized mixture of Spanish and Kikongo that loosely translates to “we are the chameleons”. On a material level it references the metamorphosis of the beads, string and fabric. On a spiritual level it reflects the adaptive survival strategies and chameleon transformations that occur- both personally and collectively,-as we navigate various systems of oppression. In spite of the trauma and the violence, Across Seven Ruins and Redemptions_Somo Kamarioka materializes a journey of hope, healing and self-determination."

-Leonardo Benzant

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Four Now; Leonardo Benzant, Barbara Earl Thomas, Adebunmi Gbadebo & Gio Swaby

December 1, 2020 to January 23, 2021

Claire Oliver Gallery

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Four Now Is A Presentation of The Gallery’s Booth at Untitled Art Fair,
Telegraphing the Excitement of Miami Art Week To Claire Oliver’s Harlem Headquarters
With A Dynamic Program of Virtual Talks

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UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach 2019

December 4, 2019 to December 8, 2019

UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach

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UNTITLED, ART is an international, curated art fair founded in 2012 that focuses on curatorial balance and integrity across all disciplines of contemporary art. Untitled, Art innovates the standard fair model by selecting a curatorial team to identify, and curate a selection of galleries, artist-run exhibition spaces, and non-profit institutions and organizations, in dialogue with an architecturally designed venue. The next edition of Untitled, Art Miami Beach will take place on the beach at Ocean Drive and 12th Street, December 4 — 8, 2019.

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Upending the Narrative @ EXPO Chicago 2019

September 19, 2019 to September 22, 2019

Navy Pier, Chicago IL

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The two artists featured in Upending the Narrative work slowly and methodically -- almost ritualistically. They create detailed and sumptuous works of art redolent with content and mystery; these works demand to be studied. Equally important to the painstaking “making” is their studio practices exploring the current condition in their own African American communities. Each speaks about the real life versus media portrayal/stereotype of the African American family: grandfather, mother, brother, daughter and the normal if the invisible successful black community.

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PULSE Miami Beach

December 6, 2018 to December 9, 2018

Indian Beach Park, Miami Beach FL

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Claire Oliver Gallery, New York is proud to present
Impatient Obsessions: a three-person curated exhibition
featuring work by Barbara Earl Thomas, Bisa Butler, and Leonardo Benzant.

It makes no difference to the blackbird if he eats from our table or scavenges from our discarded piles. The future of his kind may not be altered. But that is not our fate. We’ve inherited the burden of knowledge and the grief of failed intention. We are not born blind, but we can choose to live that way. -- Barbara Earl Thomas

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Public Collections

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
The Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, NC, USA
Art in Embassies, US Department of State, Washington, DC

Grants/Awards

Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2017

Residencies

2016 Galveston Artist Residency, Galveston Texas, 2016

Selected Exhibitions

Urban Shaman, Claire Oliver Gallery, 2021
UNTITLED, ART, Miami Beach 2020
FOUR NOW, Claire Oliver Gallery, Harlem NY, 2020
UNTITLED, ART, Miami Beach, FL 2019
EXPO CHICAGO, Chicago IL, 2019
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa OK
Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA
Coffee, Rhum, Sugar, and Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox,
Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA, 2019
PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, Claire Oliver Gallery, Miami Beach FL, 2018
The Future of Craft Part 2, The Burke Prize Exhibition, Museum of Arts and Design, 2018
Visionary Aponte: Arts & Freedom, Forum For Scholars And Publics,
Duke University, 2018
Visionary Aponte: Arts & Freedom, King Juan Carlos Center, NYC, 2018
Revival: Contemporary Pattern and Decoration, Organized by El Museo,
at Longwood Art Gallery, Hostos Community College, Bronx, NY, 2018
Afrosupernatural, Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, Newark,
New Jersey, 2017
Visionary Aponte: Arts & Freedom, 9th Edition of Global/
Borderless Caribbean, Little Haiti Cultural Center, Miami, FL, 2017
Homeostasis, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, 2017
2016-2017 Resident’s Exhibition, Galveston Artist Residency,
Galveston, TX, 2017
A Fast, Moving Sky, The Third Line, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2017
High John the Conqueror Ain’t Got Nothing On Me: American Hoodoo and
Southern Black American-centric Spiritual Ways, Rush Art Gallery, NY, curated by Danny Simmons and Shantrelle P. Lewis, 2017
Koi No Yokan III, 101 Exhibit Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2016
Africa’s Out, curated by Wangechi Mutu, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY 2016
Cosmology of Resistance and Transformation, G.R. N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI, 2015
Power, Protest, and Resistance: The Art of Revolution, Skylight Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Oshun Layne and Daniel Simmons, 2015
Badass Art Man: Original Artwork of Danny Simmons (coupled with items from his eclectic collection), African American Museum in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2015
New American Sculpture, FiveMyles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, curated by Dexter Wimberly, 2015
Venturing Out of the Heart of Darkness, Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, NC, curated by Rehema Barber, 2015
In Between Days, Driscoll Babcock Galleries, New York, NY, curated by Tess Schwab, 2014
I Kan Do Dat, Contemporary Abstract Art, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Danny Simmons and Oshun Layne, 2014
Bridging Boundaries: Redefining Diaspora Part I, Postscrypt Gallery Columbia University, New York, NY, 2014
Bridging Boundaries Redefining Diaspora Part II, Aloft Hotel Gallery, New York, NY curated by Leanne Stella, 2014
Curatorial Salon, Leonardo Benzant, Derek Fordjour, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Tikhonova & Wintner Fine Art, New York, NY, 2014

Artist Talks and Lectures

Artist Lecture Series, MICA, Maryland Institute College of Art, 2014
Across Generations: African-Americanisms in Contemporary Art. Moderated by Dexter Wimberly, Tikhonova & Wintner Fine Art, New York, NY, 2014
THE SACRED AND THE SURREAL: THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN ABSTRACT ART, Danny Simmons Jr. Panel Discussion, Moderator: Sherman Fleming, 2014
Edge Art: Black-Latino (a) Artists, An Inter-Caribbean Dialogue, 3rd. Annual Black Studies FineArt Exhibition of Contemporary Black/Afro-Latino (a) Artists from Around the Western Atlantic World, Cohen Library Archives Gallery, New York, NY, 2014

Select Bibliography

Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, LaToya Rubie Frazier, Thelma Golden, Titus Kaphar, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall, Uri McMillan, Tschabalala Self, Jack Shainman, Hank Willis Thomas, William Villalongo, Fired Up! Ready to Go!, Finding Beauty, Demanding Equity: An African American Life in Art, The Collections of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Rizzoli, 2018
Monica Uszerowicz, Reanimating History: Visionary Aponte: Art And Black Freedom, BOMB, 2018
Why This Year’s Galveston Artist Residency Exhibition is Different, Glasstire, 2017
Jyoti Kalsi, In A Constant State of Flux, Gulf News, 2017
Alyssa Klein, “Leonardo Benzant Afrosupernatural Art”, OkayAfrica, 2106
Kelvin Ward, “Afrosupernatural”, The Bholdr, 2016
Sharon Pendana, In The Trove, “Leonardo Benzant”, 2016
Benjamin Sutton, “Surveying Surveys of New American Sculpture”, Hyperallergic, 2015
Ryan Wong, “Younger Americans At Driscoll Babcock”, ARTSlant New York, 2015