Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire

The  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Studio Museum in Harlem are proud to present Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire.

This exhibition continues Firelei  Báez's longstanding interest in representations of women, particularly Afro-Caribbean/Afro-Latina women in visual culture and history.

In the exhibition, Báez features women whose legacies are preserved and maintained by the archives of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, reimagining them in conversation through imaginative portraits that incorporate materials such as reproductions of archival photographs, notes, diaries, letters, and manuscripts. In this gathering, the artist brings together women from different eras and walks of life, including important women of color whose contributions have historically been overlooked or thought of as tangential to their male counterparts.

Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire was an inHarlem project presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem in partnership with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  It was organized by Hallie Ringle, Assistant Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem.  This exhibition took place at the Schomburg Center in 2018 in the Latimer/ Edison Gallery.

About the Artist

Firelei Baez makes large scale, intricate works on paper that are intrinsically indebted to a rigorous studio practice. Through a convergence of interest in anthropology, science fiction, black female subjectivity and women's work; her art explores the humor and fantasy involved in self-making within diasporic societies, which have an ability to live with cultural ambiguities and use them to build psychological and even metaphysical defenses against cultural invasions. Learn more

The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture. Now in its second year, inHarlem is designed to explore innovative ways to engage the community while taking the Museum beyond its own walls, and encompasses a growing range of dynamic exhibitions and programs.

inHarlem is made possible thanks to Citi; the Stavros Niarchos Foundation; William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Additional support for Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is generously provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Council; and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.