Firelei Báez

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is excited to announce the Chicago presentation of Firelei Báez, the first North American survey of the artist (b. 1980, Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; lives in New York). Spanning two decades of Báez’s spirited practice, this landmark exhibition showcases her vibrant and captivating paintings and installations. Through a bold visual language that blends folklore, fantasy, mythology, and science fiction, Báez constructs layered worlds that challenge dominant historical narratives and unsettle the often-fixed categories of race, gender, and nationality. In this exhibition, Báez also emphasizes resilience and creative agency, especially among marginalized communities who have always found ways to create refuge and power in defiance of systems of repression. 

Known for her richly pigmented, multidisciplinary approach, Báez combines saturated colors, intricate patterns, and expressive figuration with abstract gestures, architectural plans, colonial-era maps, and culturally resonant symbols. Her work draws deeply from Afro-Caribbean traditions and acts as a cultural and historical crossroads for the enduring legacies of colonialism across the Americas, the African Diaspora, and the cultural nexus of the Caribbean. This major exhibition reaffirms Báez’s place as one of the most compelling and visionary artists of her generation.

In addition to her dynamic paintings, the exhibition features one of her more immersive pieces, A Drexcyen chronocommons (To win the war you fought it sideways) (2019), which occupies an entire gallery at the MCA. This large-scale work consists of paintings, mesh, papier-mâché, cutout tarp, and plants that, together, transport visitors into one of Báez’s created worlds. Chicago is also highlighted in the exhibition: The trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other’s breathing) (2019) features a ciguapa (a feminine, trickster creature from Dominican folklore) bending over an architectural plan of the Illinois Central Railroad, uniting both sides of the tracks, which run between New Orleans and Chicago, to restore the divisions left by colonial trade. 

Firelei Báez is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and curated by Eva Respini, Deputy Director and Director of Curatorial Programs, Vancouver Art Gallery (former Barbara Lee Chief Curator, ICA/Boston), with Tessa Bachi Haas, Assistant Curator, ICA/Boston. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presentation is organized by Carla Acevedo-Yates, former Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, with Cecilia González Godino, former Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow, and Iris Colburn, Curatorial Associate.