Untitled (Premiere Carte Pour L’Introduction A L’Histoire De Monde)

Copied Firelei Báez, Untitled (Premiere Carte Pour L'Introduction A L'Histoire De Monde), 2022, oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas, 76 × 97 × 1 1⁄4 in. (193.0 × 246.4 × 3.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2023.32, © 2023, Firelei Báez. Image courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photographer: Jackie Furtado

Artwork Details

Title
Untitled (Premiere Carte Pour L’Introduction A L’Histoire De Monde)
Artist
Date
2022
Location
Dimensions
76 × 97 × 1 1⁄4 in. (193.0 × 246.4 × 3.2 cm)
Copyright
© 2023, Firelei Báez. Image courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photographer: Jackie Furtado
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Object — written matter — map
  • Abstract
Object Number
2023.32
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2023.32

Artwork Description

What do you see in Firelei Báez's plumes of orange, red, and blue? Her painting might evoke the eye of a hurricane, an exploding supernova, or consuming flames.

Beneath the swirling streams of paint lies an image of the Atlas Historique, a map created in 1718 to document the recently conquered European colonies. Charting the farthest reaches of human knowledge at that time, the Atlas joined the earth, the solar system, and the constellations into one view.

Originally from the Dominican Republic, Báez thinks about the ways her own life has been shaped by the legacies of colonialism. She sees her art as a conversation with this earlier period, opening up space for questions and alternative histories. Here, she might be imagining the world represented by the Atlas ending in dramatic fires and floods. Or she could be continuing its traditions: her own imagery was inspired by the fantastical pictures of outer space transmitted by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021--today's equivalent of the eighteenth-century star map.