Tessa Solomon (ART Information) stories on the most recent exhibition by Firelei Báez, “Untitled (Drexciya)” on the Museum of Modern Artwork Chicago (positioned at 220 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago Illinois). Curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, the exhibition is on view via April 9, 2023. [Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Listed below are excerpts:
In one other world, inside the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean, is Drexciya, a civilization that might rival the misplaced metropolis of Atlantis. It’s populated by peaceable amphibian individuals, the descendants of pregnant African girls thrown overboard from slave ships to drown in the course of the Center Passage. Fairly than succumb to loss of life, the ladies have been adopted by the water and their infants have been born swimming.
Drexciya was launched in 1992 by the Detroit Afrofuturist techno duo of the identical identify. (Its members, James Stinson and Gerald Donald, have been enigmas within the digital scene.) Within the twenty years since, artists have drawn inspiration from the parable and in the end remixed it, embodying its various narrative in tune, literature, and visible artwork.
In its newest interpretation, artist Firelei Báez invitations viewers to wade into the waves along with her. Báez has re-created her portray Untitled (Drexciya), from 2020, at monumental scale to suit the Museum of Modern Artwork Chicago’s two-story atrium. Right here, Baez has masterfully expanded her early work’s imaginative and prescient. The ocean has been abstracted to resemble a primordial cosmos the place celestial our bodies—a feminine kind is barely simply discernible—ebb within the present.
Báez, who was born within the Dominican Republic and is now primarily based in New York, has a eager understanding of why individuals inform tales, and what particular goal they serve for traumatized communities. In her canvases, allegory and historical past meet to make trendy myths, the place life extra simply grants victorious endings.
To be taught extra about her MCA Chicago fee, ARTnews interviewed Báez by electronic mail.
ARTnews: What was the method like portray the primary Drexciya?
Firelei Báez: Work like the primary Drexciya are made by pouring giant portions of paint over a flat floor. I started the portray with two abstracted figures, caught between a dance and a battle, like these in Capoeira, which was developed as a veiled martial artwork for self-defense by enslaved peoples in Brazil. Each one of many subsequent 30 layers of paint I poured was an try at tapping into the previous and adapting to the adjustments introduced on by my new studio within the Bronx.
What was the expertise of reimagining this work on a big scale like?
Immersion is essential to my work. The flexibility to work on a big scale like this creates a possibility for the viewer to really feel totally submerged on the planet of the portray. Virtually like a slippage between two realms.
What drew you to the world of Drexciya?
A lot of my work comprises oceanic imagery as a way of reconsidering the broader historical past of the Black diaspora and the Center Passage. That is significantly resonant for me when positioned in relation to [Édouard] Glissant’s idea of the ocean as a connector and a repository of bodily reminiscence. The Drexciyan fable, for which the portray is known as, was developed within the Nineteen Nineties by Drexciya, a Detroit-based digital music duo. The parable posits the existence of an underwater nation populated by a brand new technology of water-breathing people; the unborn kids of pregnant African girls who have been thrown off of slave ships and have tailored to breathe fluid inside their moms’ wombs. To me, crucial fabulation, or storytelling as a way of addressing crucial omissions inside the archive, is a vital a part of the work I do. The world of Drexciya could be very a lot part of that narrative. [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/firelei-baez-mca-chicago-exhibition-drexciya-1234624365
[Firelei Báez, ‘Untitled (Drexciya)’, 2020.COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JAMES COHAN, NEW YORK.]
The exhibition:
Untitled (Drexciya)
Artist: Firelei Báez
Curator: Carla Acevedo-Yates
By April 9, 2023
Museum of Modern Artwork Chicago, 220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60611
https://mcachicago.org/exhibitions/2022/firelei-baez