Leigh Markopoulos. Image courtesy of Peta Rake.

Ashley Stull Meyers:

At the too-old age of twenty-two I cried after an exhibition planning meeting. This one had gone worse than most, which is saying something in a small, opinion-filled conference room with thirteen other curators. I exited barely containing hot tears of frustration, doubt, and insecurity. But I didn’t get ten steps without feeling a hand on my back, pushing me across the hall with a force that was equal parts gentle and comedic. “Don’t you DARE!” she said. Leigh’s voice always had the hypnotizing effect of someone a little older, a little cooler, a little closer to what I was floundering to become. I’d felt that way about her since my graduate school interview, and now I’ll feel that way about her forever.

All my life I’ve wanted to be a curator, but I can’t say I truly knew what that was before Leigh. Her grace and academic rigor have been the model for many, but more so were her strength, humor, and commanding presence. She made me laugh that day in her tiny office across the hall. From her keen observation of both my practice and my person, she reordered the way I would come to work. Every exhibition I construct will have her temper, and whatever small marks I make will be in her likeness.

Anuradha Vikram:

The feeling of losing a mentor is unsettlingly close to that of being orphaned. Though I hadn’t seen Leigh Markopoulos in a few years, imagining the world without her feels strange. Her protective presence bolstered me for years after I left the Curatorial Practice program (CURP) at California College of the Arts. Beside the fact that I owe to her my introduction to at least two pivotal jobs, she was a constant presence, speaking truth while negotiating power, and keeping it real in her own impeccable way.

I entered CURP’s inaugural cohort with several years in the New York art world under my belt, having worked with a blue-chip artist on exhibitions at major museums. Leigh taught Professional Practices in our first year and was an immediate ally. At the Serpentine and subsequently the Wattis, she was a firefighter. Celebrity artists and curators could come and go, but Leigh dealt in facts, and she solved problems. She knew a lot about the trade-offs and sacrifices required to make a go of it in the arts, especially without status or money already conferred—but she had no illusions of purity in the art world. We bonded over that.

Leigh saw the best in her students and worked tirelessly to help them realize their fullest potential both in the program and afterwards. I hope that I can live up to her example.

Leigh Markopoulos. Image courtesy of Sue Ellen Stone, 2016.

Xiaoyu Weng:

It was in the summer of 2007—almost ten years ago—that I arrived in California to start my graduate studies. I thought my English was good, but reality was crueler and stranger; I could barely understand the class. Since I was the only foreign student among the nine and I thought that everyone spoke so fast, I was always nervous and self-conscious. But Leigh’s appearance would put me at ease, even just for a little bit. She was teaching us the practical side of exhibition making: budget, space, size, scale, et cetera, and on some occasions she would show up with a puppy that she was dog-sitting at the time. I felt I was not alone on those occasions.

Things did not improve much towards the end of the semester, but we had to pass an exam on planning out an exhibition on paper. I was completely stunned when I received the quiz in inches and feet, which I didn’t even have a basic sense of. Leigh saved me again and allowed me to use my cellphone and convert everything into metric. Little did she know that this small gesture rescued me from a total breakdown. And little did I know, in the years to come, she would save me many more times.

Leigh wore a jasmine perfume and the scent still lingers; she liked to play Candy Crush from time to time, and she hid her tissues in her sleeve…

Kevin Killian:

In the fall of 2003, Matthew Higgs and Leigh Markopolous were planning an ambitious show of contemporary work called LIKENESS: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists for the Wattis Institute in San Francisco. Assigned to write the lead essay, I was buzzing away at it when felled by a heart attack at Thanksgiving. The meds they gave me had me slurring my words and my brain wasn’t working, I could begin sentences but then I’d forget what came at their ends, and I couldn’t remember simple words, like “green” or “square.” Would I be able to finish the essay? Leigh came and watched me as I tried to hold a conversation. She refrained from direct speech, but I understood, from her courteous bearing and the driving gloves clutched in one hand, that her visit was a sort of pleasant ultimatum. She didn’t need to say that the Wattis (and the ICA, which sponsored the show) was panicking about the catalog. That was apparent in the limpidity of her gaze, the crispness of her blouse, the way she could size up another’s character, or lack of it, in a single moment. After a while she smiled and spoke: “I’ve read your drafts of the essay. You’ll finish it this weekend?”

“Yes… [what was her name?] … Leigh.”

She tucked her beautiful hands into gloves. “Splendid.” Then she was out the door. With Dodie’s assistance, I finished the piece by Sunday. Happily, the join of “before” and “after” isn’t too apparent. Always I’ll remember Leigh’s acumen, assurance, and foresight, and the kindness which these qualities sometimes disguised as mere efficiency.

Leigh Markopoulos. Image courtesy of Kevin Killian.

Angel Rafael Vázquez-Concepción:

Having faced the daunting task of writing about death and aesthetics under Leigh’s tutelage at CCA, it is painfully surreal to now write these lines to memorialize her life and her contributions to her curatorial students across her career.

Leigh dealt criticism with a velvet glove. She saw through your intentions with X-ray vision. She rearranged your chakras. But she did it so that you may get to the prize. When I say she criticized, I want to be clear: She did not seek to make her students insecure, she pushed upward and forward so that they could dispel self-imposed limitations and achieve excellence.

I will never forget her keen sense of humor about it all, too. Noticing how hard she worked, I always tried to be the comedian with her. I will hang on to the memory of those chuckles shared, which were many, and will hear her rational voice in my head whenever I make an exhibition. I always walked out of her office having much higher standards for my practice than I did when I entered. Leigh, you live in us.

Natasha Boas:

Leigh, I have so many fond memories of you over the last ten or fifteen years since you made San Francisco your home. I remember how skilled and sexy you were as our last-minute auctioneer at New Langton Arts in the early aughts, surprising everyone with your unexpected talent at bid calling; your celebrated puddings and moussakas; our Meyer lemon curd competition; our love of Mill Valley, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Marseille Noir, Paris, grandmother Rose’s Marina basement and the incomparable Leiber bros; your deftness as an editrix, your sharp irony and a tender childlike awe of nature and animals; your perfect birthday gifts of exhibition ephemera that would magically respond to my current art obsessions. We could weep together at the cinema, drink rare scotch, and then talk into the night about syllabi and students.

I am reminded of your elegant Creative Growth exhibition Love Is a Stranger, which brought together representations of longing and desire in a way that moved me so. You were sharing a secret with us through this quiet collection of works. Together, we had brainstormed the title with ideas such as “l’amour de loin” (love from afar) or “l’amour fou” (mad love). It is truly unimaginable that you are gone. Just like that. L’amour/la mort. Death is a stranger.

Leigh Markopoulos (fourth from left) with her students. Image courtesy of CAFA Museum Beijing.

Amanda Hunt:

Leigh was fearless. She was whip-smart, and if you couldn’t keep up—well, you were simply left in the dust. She drove like she walked and talked; furiously, full of energy. She was an unstoppable force. She was at once enduringly kind and endlessly generous with her time, counsel and resources. I cannot conjure a more perfect mentor—a woman I respected enormously for her verve, her uncompromising resolve to live life on her own terms, her humor and prowess, and a committed passion for her work. She remained this way despite her unimaginable losses. It is difficult to understand that I will no longer be calling Leigh first for everything. I miss her deeply now, as I will for a very, very long time.

A. Will Brown:

Nestled amidst the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Banff Centre is an enclave where esteemed creative practitioners and their students come to be immersed in art and the drama of the landscape. In the fall of 2011, Leigh Markopoulos led a charge of second-year Curatorial Practice students to Banff for a workshop with Kitty Scott and Nicolas Bourriaud. Leigh brought us to Banff to see beyond ourselves and our group, to expand our thinking with a series of rigorous and fruitful conversations in a remarkable setting. Between sessions we visited artists’ studios and listened to Ragnar Kjartansson read poetry with his students in a candlelit, whiskey-laced environment.

One morning, Leigh led us to a snow-covered tea house overlooking a mountain lake—a stunningly beautiful yet difficult journey. While walking behind Leigh, stumbling excitedly to talk with her, I realized that I would follow her anywhere. Leigh Markopoulos was everything that she taught us—complexity, elegance, self-determination, and perspective. Thank you for opening so many doors for us, Leigh, but most of all, for teaching us to walk through them on our own. You were the uncompromising leader we all deserve but so few ever get.

Leigh Markopoulos. Image courtesy of CAFA Museum Beijing.

Kristina Lee Podesva:

Leigh’s life was not a matter of common knowledge, by design. Yet it punctured through in flashes of heartache and brilliance. A mysterious, generous light surrounded her and often radiated out, touching those who came into contact. It should be known that she exerted upon us a tricky and tremendous force that she exerted equally upon herself. She worked strenuously and elegantly, and almost always behind the scenes. It was as if she moved around us and in the world en pointe.

So many things accented her life that we may never know or be capable of knowing, which compounds our loss with the impossibility of learning and loving her more. With each new experience I had with her, she seemed to shape-shift. Given her flawless manners (I have not known anyone so fluent in pleases and thank-yous), I would never have imagined our many moments sitting together in her office, door shut, gossiping and chuckling. Neither would I have predicted seeing her tackling Smiths songs with ease at a Korean karaoke bar, or learning she loved twee British television mysteries as much as I do, or hearing her confess that she had popped pills with Genesis P-Orridge. Such details we must now leave in suspension. May they rest in peace along with our fearless leader, lovable shape-shifter, creatrix of mysterious, generous light.

Peta Rake:

Two weeks after, Amy Franchescini came to Banff. Following her artist talk, we spoke of an exhibition of artist books from the Steven Leiber Archive hosted in her home, curated by Ola El Khalidi, a mutual friend. I remember how much locally sourced cheese there was, and that L was there too. There was a nostalgia to what Amy spoke of; my education, thoughtfully crafted by L, who also was a transplant to San Francisco and who saw the importance to be both international and local in our thinking. As I sat on the carpeted floor of the gallery I now have the privilege to curate, I know that I am here in part because of L.

L fondly abbreviated those she knew best with the first letter of their name. She was nothing if not economical with her words. Me, I was P. Sue Ellen Stone, SE. David Kasprzak, DK. And so on. I, like others, have carried on this affectionate shortening ever since. I remember her telling me more than once how telemarketers would mispronounce her name: Lemur Kopolos, like a Madagascan tree-dweller.

The day after, Kristina Lee Podesva forwarded me L’s text in art agenda. Dore Ashton “Response to Crisis in American Art” (1969) was published in their “Rearviews” section, a series that reveals blind spots in contemporary art criticism by prefacing “found” documents in the present. L wrote that the American art historian Ashton was “an opponent of mediocrity in any form.” She also wrote about the present, and that in our contemporary moment, like Dore, we must continue to “voice our collective outrage” “as explicitly and loudly” as we can. I remembered one particularly awkward lunch, where L put a mediocre dissenter in their place, aptly finishing her sentence by pulling her sunglasses down from her curly head.

Banff was an important place for L. Kitty Scott first invited her here, and she returned several times to visit me (and the hot springs) over the years, and to visit the Banff Centre’s Paul D. Fleck Library and Archives—a Canadian collection to which her late husband Steven Leiber donated and sold important examples of Canadian conceptual art ephemera. After he passed, L ran the Steven Leiber Archive with the same gusto as Steven did, moving it from its long-term home on Toledo Way in the Marina, to the Mission, with the help of her dedicated archivist and friend Elisheva Biernoff. The most recent acquisition that L organized for us was 45 30’N-72 36’W +inventory, a 1971 publication from an exhibition that was organized by Gary Coward, Zoe Notkin, and friends in Montreal. In an Instagram post on October 21, 2016, L commented “on the right, Jerry Rubin’s ‘do it!’… predates HUO [Hans Ulrich Obrist] by 20 years.” That was L, sharp and quick to point out the “blind spots” of the present, to ground them in history, lucidly drawing connections that for her many students were impressive and aspirational—and not even HUO was safe.

Yesterday I spent time with 45 30’N-72 36’W +inventory. On one of the loose-leaf pages the word “energy” was written, followed by a list of all the individuals and artists who were involved, even in an ancillary way, in that project. People as “energy.” I thought this a beautiful way to think about L. Her energy exists in the exhibitions that we continue to make, the books we write, the studio visits we have, and the people we know and love, because she assembled them and they have radiated into our practice in some way. As she said of Dore Ashton and our present, we all must continue this energy “explicitly and loudly as [we] can.”

Liz Glass:

On my first day as a curatorial practice student, I  sat in one of the sterile classrooms in the graduate center, listening to a perfectly poised, British-accented woman speak and click through slides. “Of course you are all familiar with this work…” she would begin, rattling through art-historical information and anecdotes about her own curatorial work at the Serpentine and other venues. I struggled to keep up, writing down the artists’ names phonetically, almost all of them unfamiliar to my neophyte ears.

Leigh opened a door into a different world—a world filled with poetry, humor, intensity, rigor, and friction. For her students, she could play the role of savior, stepping in (as she often did) in our most anxious moments to be the ever-gracious voice of reason. She could also take on the role of ally or adversary, depending on what was needed—Leigh did not roll over, and she was not afraid to push you when you needed it. But just as often, she was on your side, showing an unbelievable capacity for generosity, creativity, and compassion. She was funny and wry, blunt and matter-of-fact, yet exceedingly kind.

When I heard about Leigh’s death, one of the first images that came into my mind was a billboard project by the artist Felix Gonzalez Torres—one of the many artists Leigh introduced me to on that first day of school. The image on the billboard, familiar to many of us now, shows an unmade, unoccupied bed. The clean white sheets have been crumpled by departed bodies, and a pair of pillows host impressions of once-resting heads, laying side by side. In losing Leigh, it seems like we also lose Steven, her partner and our friend, over again; but the idea that they exist together again, somewhere—well, that’s not an uninteresting idea.

Agnes Denes. Wheatfield – A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill (view with Statue of Liberty across the Hudson), 1982.

Taylor Renee Aldridge
Co-founder of ARTS.BLACK, a journal for art criticism from Black perspectives

Writer adrienne maree brown recently shared with me the strength of the oak tree. The oak tree, which is a symbol of endurance and sustainability, is deeply rooted beneath the earth’s surface, and its roots spread horizontally four to seven times the width of the tree’s height. As oak tree roots spread within the soil, it connects with the roots of other oak trees, creating bound systems of support between oak trees that are side by side. As a result, in extreme storms, they may be moved but are never broken. I think of myself as an oak tree who is perpetually bound and held up by the support of my peers, colleagues, and loved ones. I can weather any storm; I am reminded of my resilience. During this season, I am most thankful for my communities that continue to hold me up and provide unconditional support.

Prem Krishnamurthy
Founding Principal of Project Projects, Founder and Curator of P!, Faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies​ at Bard College

One word: honesty. Amidst all the hubbub, the hyperbole, the false enthusiasm, the bullshit, and the bald-faced lies, there are a core group of friends and colleagues whom I can usually count on to be direct and tell the whole truth, even when it hurts a little. In times like these (after we thought everyone agreed with us, but it turned out to be just self-delusion and narcissism), it seems more important than ever to be supportive of each other while still critical. This is the only way the world moves along a little and things can change.

Sharon Louden
Artist, Advocate, Editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life books

When I wake up in the morning, I always feel grateful that I am an artist, that I can make anything out of nothing, that I can share privilege, that I can share opportunities to grow culture. What gives me the support and encouragement to live freely is the comfort of my loving and vibrant community, which is essential to my being. This community includes all generations, critics, curators, museum professionals, students, and all are generous. I learn from them and am grateful to be able to thrive in their company. It is the absolute best time to be an artist.

Jessica Lynne
Co-founder of ARTS.BLACK, a journal for art criticism from Black perspectives

This year, as I have learned to better brave the injustices of this world, I have turned increasingly to the lives and legacies of those who have come before me to gather the tools and skills needed to care for my body, mind, and spirit. In the midst of a tumultuous political climate such as the one in which we find ourselves currently, learning from the words and actions of individuals such as Shirley Chisholm, Stuart Hall, Bayard Rustin, and Claudia Jones, to name a few, has inspired me tremendously. I remain thankful for this archive to which I am clinging as I work in the best way I know how for justice alongside my friends and colleagues.

Alpesh Kantilal Patel
Curator, critic, art historian; monograph Productive failure: Writing queer transnational South Asian art histories forthcoming from Manchester University Press

Over the past two weeks, I have done forty-one studio visits, scheduled prior to the election, with MFA candidates at Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Michigan. I spent about an hour with each artist or architect. I am tired physically but invigorated, too. It’s been like a drug—give me more! I was reminded forty-one times what an amazing group of artists are coming up through the pipeline who are doing brilliant works of all kinds—from the formal to the political. I’ve seen a kind of future I refused to believe could exist: hopeful—even glorious—without being amnesiac.

Claudia La Rocco
Claudia La Rocco is a writer and the editor-in-chief of SFMOMA’s Open Space​

Tongo Eisen-Martin’s words, to remind that the choice between art & activism is a false one. Agnes Martin’s deceptively calm surfaces, one grid after another floating up the Guggenheim’s grand spiral. Jodi Melnick’s moment-by-moment movement. The Chocolate Factory Theater. The Prelinger Archives. What Anthony Hernandez sees. Glimpsing, through Bill Berkson & Connie Lewallen, what a life lived for & with art can be. Simone White’s honed yet porous poem-containers. Open Space, in its expanse & its particulars; all of the meticulous craft that goes into making it exist, repeated daily on the 10th floor alongside Gordon Faylor & Grace Ambrose.

Roberta Smith
Co-chief art critic at The New York Times

Art is the stone thrown in the pond of my existence. Everything else ripples out from there. It makes possible my writing—which is my escape from, my defense against, and my way of connecting to the world. Whether good, bad, or indifferent, art always teaches me about its nature and about the human need to make it. And then around the art, equally important, are the people determined to create, write about, or show it that form the core of the art world, namely artists, curators, critics, and art dealers (and, for me, gallery receptionists). Beyond all this there’s New York City, the great incubator.

Kristina Lee Podesva
artist, writer, and editor of Fillip

Eleanor Antin, Janine Antoni, Ida Applebroog, Julie Ault, Dodie Bellamy, Hannah Black, Louise Bourgeois, Tania Bruguera, Claude Cahun, Rebecca Belmore, Sophie Calle, Lygia Clark, Hanne Darboven, Agnes Denes, Trisha Donnelly, Tracey Emin, Valie Export, Andrea Fraser, Regina José Galindo, Isa Genzken, Guerrilla Girls, Mona Hatoum, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Eva Hesse, Leslie Hewitt, Hannah Höch, Nancy Holt, Jenny Holzer, Sanja Ivekovic, Chris Kraus, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Zoe Leonard, Linder, Lucy Lippard, Teresa Margolles, Ana Mendieta, Trinh T. Min-ha, Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, Carol Rama, Lisa Robertson, Martha Rosler, Pipilotti Rist, Carolee Schneeman, Bonnie Sherk, Martine Syms, Toyen, Gillian Wearing, Carrie Mae Weems, Hannah Wilke

Frances Richard
Author Anarch., The Phonemes, See Through; coauthor of Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Fake Estates”

I am thankful for the conversations I had today in grad student studios: About the sifting of archives and the contemplation of queer ancestors as a kind of filial-historical cruising, a libidinal mapping of the terrain of the past; about queer care and the ethics of impossible hope as magic; about the embodied drifting that is the passing down of stories, and the intimate distance of the parent’s accent. (These are 3 different hours with three separate people.) I am grateful for every artist in my circle posting articles, circulating Paul Ryan’s phone number [202-225-3031], vowing not to normalize celebrity-supremacist fascism, collecting cold-weather outerwear to send to Standing Rock, and still and still and still making their work.

Namita Wiggers
Curator, writer, educator, and leader of Critical Craft Forum

There is much to fear in the immediate future. But we are not starting from scratch. For the past thirty, fifty, hundreds of years, people have and will continue to voice and plan ways to increase inclusion and difference in board rooms, conferences, meetings, exhibitions, essays, collectors’ homes, classrooms, on the street. I entered the contemporary art world in the late 1980s in the midst of the Culture Wars and AIDS crisis. That was then. This is now, a different present then we thought possible in 1990. The future will be different, too, because we are here, and like many before us and those to come, we are not alone. And because we are not alone, we are strong.  For this, I am thankful.