Firelei Báez: Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream), 2024. South London Gallery. Photo: Above Ground
★★★★ – The Guardian
Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) is Firelei Báez’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Known for her striking paintings, she also makes drawings, installations, and sculptures. Báez takes over the South London Gallery with new immersive installations and large abstract paintings. She uses rich colours, elements from nature, sound and light to reflect on complex colonial histories.
The exhibition is a journey through vibrant spaces where ecology, power, and resistance interact.
Through research and critical engagement with archives, Báez examines the legacies of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. For her, myths and folklore are tools of cultural and spiritual resistance. Sueño de la Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) shares stories of the Ciguapa, a mythological figure from Dominican folklore; Atabey, the Taino mother earth spirit; Oshun, the Yoruba god of rivers, love, beauty, and prosperity; and Erzili, a spirit of love from Haitian Vodou.
These mythical figures invite viewers to reconsider what it means to be human, and to imagine freedom from earthly constraints.
“My works are propositions, meant to create alternate pasts and potential futures, questioning history and culture in order to provide a space for reassessing the present.” — Firelei Báez
The exhibition is curated by the 2023-24 New Curators fellows: Carol Bedoy, Courtney Brown, Felix Choong, Lemeeze Davids, Rosie Fitter, Lucia Jurikova, Aditi Kapoor, Makella Ama Ketedzi, Rey Londres, Nikita Sena Quarshie and Amandine Vabre Chau. New Curators offers aspiring curators from lower socio-economic backgrounds a paid, 12-month intensive curatorial training from its base at the South London Gallery.
ABOUT FIRELEI BAEZ
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 will be the subject of her first major US survey at the I.C.A. Boston, curated by Eva Respini. Her work has been presented in many significant international exhibitions, including the inaugural installation of the I.C.A. Watershed, Boston (2021), curated by Eva Respini, now on view at 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 the 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.
ACCESS
- Quiet hour with lowered sound is between 5-6pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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It is dark and loud in the Main Gallery.
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Due to the installation, the Main Gallery can be very hot on warmer days.
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There is seating in the Main Gallery, Fire Station Gallery 2 & Gallery 4.
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Additional seating, ear defenders, ear plugs, magnifying glasses and torches are available available to borrow upon request- please ask a member of staff.
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Please contact mail@southlondongallery.org with access requirements.
