Artist Talk: Firelei Báez

To coincide with the opening of the highly anticipated exhibition Firelei Báez, join artist Firelei Báez in conversation with curator Eva Respini, Deputy Director & Director of Curatorial Programs. They will discuss Báez’s artistic practice and how storytelling and mythmaking inform her work.  

Over the past twenty years, Báez has been making art that explores the multilayered legacy of colonial histories, as well as the African diaspora in the Caribbean and beyond. Firelei Báez is the artist’s first mid-career survey and the first opportunity for Canadian audiences to delve into Báez’s complex and profoundly moving body of work.  

This talk is free for Experience Members and above and ticketed at the reduced price of $10 for Ideas Members. The ticket price for Access Pass Holders and non-members is $20.

This event will take place at UBC Robson Square, 800 Robson Street.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Firelei Báez (b. 1981, Dominican Republic) received an M.F.A. from Hunter College, a B.F.A. from the Cooper Union’s School of Art, and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 2024, Báez is the subject of her first major US survey at the ICA/Boston, curated by Eva Respini. Her work has been presented in many significant international exhibitions, including the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed, Boston (2021), curated by Eva Respini, which travelled to The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas; and The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani. Recent solo presentations of Báez’s work include exhibitions at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami. The artist has recently participated in a number of group exhibitions at major institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Cleveland Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of many awards, most recently the Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022), Artes Mundi Prize (2021), and Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021). Báez’s work is held in many significant private and public collections; the latter include the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; The Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda, Angola; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Tate, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Eva Respini is Deputy Director & Director of Curatorial Programs at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and, in her new role, she shapes and drives the vision of the Gallery’s Curatorial program, along with the Gallery team. Respini served as the curator and co-commissioner for the 2022 U.S. Pavilion’s presentation of Simone Leigh at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Leigh won the 2022 Golden Lion for her participation in the Biennale’s main exhibition. She organized the highly successful mid-career survey of Simone Leigh’s work, which opened at the ICA/Boston in April 2023, and will tour across the United States through 2025. Between 2015 and 2023, Respini was Deputy Director and Barbara Lee Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (ICA/Boston). Prior to her tenure there, she served as Curator at the Museum of Modern Art for more than a decade in the Department of Photography, where she curated numerous acclaimed exhibitions of contemporary art and photography. Respini’s leadership and commitment to curatorial craft at every level of exhibition-making is evident in all her projects. Respini has been a visiting lecturer, critic and speaker at a number of universities and currently teaches a seminar on curatorial practice at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Other universities where she has taught and lectured include School of Visual Arts, Columbia University; Yale University’s School of Art; and the School of Visual Arts, New York. She has published numerous books and catalogues, and her writing has appeared in museum publications and periodicals.