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Title:	Firelei Báez
Date:	6/13/2025 - 9/21/2025
Address:	Des Moines Art Center, 4700 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, IA 50312,
Location:	Des Moines, IA
Hours:	Tuesdays & Wednesdays: 10am - 4pm, Thursdays & Fridays: 10am - 7pm, Saturdays & Sundays: 10am - 5pm
Cost/Cover:	free
Web Page:	https://desmoinesartcenter.org/art/exhibitions/firelei-baez/
Contact Info:	(515) 277-4405

Details:

This exhibition is the first North American survey dedicated to the richly layered work of Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Dominican Republic). Over the past 20 years, she has made work that explores the multilayered legacy of colonial histories and the African diaspora in the Caribbean and beyond. She draws on the disciplines of anthropology, geography, folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and social history to unsettle categories of race, gender, and nationality in her paintings, drawings, and installations. Her exuberant paintings feature finely wrought, complex, and layered uses of pattern, decoration, and saturated color, often overlaid on maps made during colonial rule in the Americas. Báez’s investment in the medium of painting and its capacity for storytelling and mythmaking informs all her work, including her sculptural installations, which bring this quality into three dimensions. This exhibition offers a timely opportunity to gain a holistic understanding of Báez’s complex and profoundly moving body of work, cementing her as one of the most important artists of the early 21st century.