David Leggett
Turn on any of Chicago’s hip-hop stations and there’s an entire weird galaxy of content out there mimicking American life and society, yet not touched by the art world. David Leggett is one of the few artists to productively venture into this territory bringing us back strange visions of Lil’ Wayne tripping out with Grimace and money-consumed Rick Ross with no shortage of acerbic racial, sexual, and art-world politics, as we saw in his solo exhibition at Hyde Park Art Center over the summer. Frequently the self-referential art world seems to have little to do with a larger world, but not so in Leggett’s art.
Best of Chicago 2012