Becoming a mother during the pandemic and struggling to meet the demands placed on her as an artist, Swedish-born, London-based Ghislaine Leung further developed her idea of ‘scores’: open-ended instructions that allow institutions to realise her works in their own ways.
In doing so, she challenges traditional notions of authorship and control, while revealing often-hidden themes like labour and care. Known for setting clear boundaries around her time, she even avoids having images of herself online – only her work is visible. Leung’s practice has been widely exhibited, and in 2023, she was nominated for the Turner Prize.
I think there’s a misconception that artworks appear fully formed – made by a genius, exhibited in perfect gallery spaces.
Many of your artworks are based on so-called ‘scores’ – short, descriptive texts that shape the physical form of the work – which are then implemented by the institution presenting it. How involved are you once they’re handed over?
That depends. If I am working on a new series of scores like for Reproductions at n.b.k., I’m very involved because I’m still making the work, and the score is not final. Usually, I work closely with the institution to try to get the scores to a point where they can circulate without me later; often that means adding more openness to them.
The scores do, intentionally, bring up questions around interpretation – like what constitutes an artwork. Occasionally there’s frustration – galleries desperately asking: “Just tell me what it should look like!”
I can imagine. It must be a daunting task for them to create the work from scratch…
I think there’s a misconception that artworks appear fully formed – made by a genius, exhibited in perfect gallery spaces – when art is always made through collective effort. My work might seem like a challenge to the idea of the autonomous art object, but really, it’s just being honest about how things already happen.
My process doesn’t add more work; it acknowledges the existing ecosystem. Because art is never just the object, but a raft of discourse and labour that also consolidates the value of art. It’s what we’re doing right now, talking about it.
Would you say you’re placing new or unconventional demands on how the space operates?
There’s a pushback for the institution to take some accountability for sure. One of the curators at the n.b.k. said working with me was very different to how she usually works: it wasn’t a pitched idea, executed and shipped, but an ongoing exchange. She witnessed not just the outcome, but the full process, including my emotional capacity, crisis, wrong turns and the boundaries I try to maintain. I simply can’t do everything, no one can – and that’s okay.
In Care (2024), you asked Kunsthalle Basel to mark a wall with all 365 days of the year, then a yellow rectangle to show the childcare hours you’d need to work full time. It’s a simplification, but it captures how you balance conceptual rigour with something deeply personal.
Someone once asked if I prioritise materials or concepts, but for me, it’s neither – it’s about conditions. The material conditions in my life shape my work. How am I able to make art, and how am I able to keep making art? After the Turner Prize, I had to go straight into a show in Chicago, then almost immediately into the Kunsthalle Basel show.
At the same time, I was facing major surgery and supposed to take eight weeks off. I was overwhelmed, wondering how I’d pretend nothing was happening. In the end, I just thought: ‘These are the conditions I’m in – so that’s what the show will reflect, the time I have, the support I have, the payment I am given.’
What happens if you actually let in the messiness, the limitations, the reality of what you’re going through? I often come back to this thought: ‘Maybe anyone can be an artist, but who gets to keep being one is a whole other question.’
Were you worried about the response?
I’d love to say I’m brave and certain, but honestly, I’m riddled with doubt. Each show is a risk. That feels true of the n.b.k. show too. Talking about being a parent was hard. I worried about what could or couldn’t be said. There’s a lot of risk in the work, which is why I’ve tried to build a practice that gives me some kind of support structure so I can take those risks.
That’s only possible if you’re not constantly in a state of precarity. Taking eight weeks off before a big institutional show felt risky – it went against everything I’d ever been taught. There are all these unspoken rules – like the stigma around having other jobs. Though I barely know a single artist that doesn’t. That labour sustains you, why be ashamed of it? I’m not trying to break taboos – I’m trying to undo the ones I’ve internalised.
There was a period when you stopped making art together…
Yes, I didn’t make art for 13 years, and when I came back to it, I knew I didn’t want to chase the old model – I didn’t want high production value, to make bronzes or have a big studio with loads of assistants or have a four-day job just to support it. I needed to figure out a way to practice that fit my life. A big part of that was choosing not to police the work.
I know I have controlling, perfectionist tendencies – like many artists – but trying to micromanage every detail would’ve made making art completely unsustainable. So I try to lean into letting go. Funny thing is, the more I let go, the more interesting it got. When I started working with scores, I was still heavily involved in installs. But after having a kid, getting sick and the pandemic hitting, I literally couldn’t be there. That’s when the scores really started circulating without me, and they simply got better. That was a moment of realisation.
Your latest book, Bosses (2023), deals with many of those questions head on – especially around motherhood and the impossibility of being constantly available. Were you always open to including those personal realities in your work, or was that a shift for you?
I tried for a long time to not put that stuff in because I was scared it was too vulnerable. But even if you try and not put it in the work, it comes out anyway as repression. There’s a lot of pressure to make a kind of airtight, well-defended work – to close every gap.
But if you do that, there’s no way in. You have to leave holes – that’s where people connect. And when I wrote Bosses, I didn’t know if I should say the things I was saying. But the response was overwhelming. The very thing you’re afraid to share, the thing that feels most private or risky, is often what resonates most deeply. Not because people have the same experiences, but because you’ve articulated something you hadn’t felt permission to express.
Have you ever been surprised by how an institution engaged with your work?
That’s the pleasure of the work! I don’t really have this kind of concept or vision of the work, it’s supposed to be generative. The Four Years in Ten Years in Twenty Years (2024) was recently done in New York by a collector who bought it and sent a picture of the cake and it looked entirely different to an earlier version – I was so happy.
Have you ever been disappointed by what has resulted from a score?
I think in 10 years, there’s been one occasion where someone didn’t fully do it. But then if a score isn’t done, then it isn’t the work. I want and need to make them as open as possible because the more fixed it is, the less it can circulate. If you let go of shoring it up, it becomes freer. I think that also comes from being a writer. In literature, meaning is never fixed; each reader brings their own reading.
Since being nominated for the Turner Prize in 2023, there’s been a real surge in interest in your work. How are you handling this?
Okay I think, I mean I’ve never bought into that idea that’s instilled in us that someone’s on the up and reaches some point of security: “Once you get that, once that big thing happens…” Having worked in institutions with artists you see how the trajectory of careers can go up and down – there’s no security in art. I’m not trying to scale, I’m just trying to maintain. I try to know my burn time. If I can continue working and be able to do that long-term, it would be amazing.
You’re known for keeping your online appearance quite hidden. So how would you have reacted if you’d won?
The only condition I made was that I wouldn’t be photographed or filmed. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, it’s just that being on camera makes me self-conscious. I want conversations to feel intimate, and that’s hard when you’re in high performance mode, I become defensive. There’s an assumption you have to do things a certain way – but what if you don’t? Saying no to one thing can be saying yes to something else, something unexpected. But it’s not easy to say no; it takes effort.
Have you lost opportunities?
There’s always a pressure to participate in a particular kind of culture, especially in the art world. But that culture isn’t right for everyone. I’m an introvert in lots of ways. I love writing and talking about things I’m passionate about and supporting people I care about, but ultimately, my art is the thing I want in public – not me.
There’s this feeling that you must constantly present yourself to succeed, I don’t think it has to be that way. I might miss out on certain opportunities, but I also gain time with family, with friends, time to rest and make the work itself.
Normally I’d say I’ll see you at the opening of your exhibition, Reproductions at the n.b.k., but I understand you won’t be coming?
No, I won’t be going. I just find them astonishingly stressful, and every time I go I just want to run or close the show. I find it hard not to self-sabotage, to leave things open, to take the risks. And when I am away from everyone I love that gets harder, and harder for them too. I end up hiding in toilets or just fetching people drinks.
What you were saying about being an introvert is now making sense…
I did break my own rule recently and went to an opening dinner, the only one in five years. But no one knew who I was, which kind of confirmed I didn’t need to be there anyway! I always liked that David Hammons line, “I don’t know what my work is. I have to wait and hear that from someone.” I know how I work, I don’t know if I could say what the work is. I’m so close to it. You might know better than me.
- Reproductions, n.b.k, Chaussestr. 128-129, Mitte. Through Aug 3, details.
