Mennello Museum of American Art

Visit The Mennello Museum this weekend and enjoy a FREE cultural experience thanks to Bank of America’s Museums on Us! Bank of America and Merrill Lynch cardholders receive free admission by presenting their debit or credit card, along with valid photo ID at the front desk.

What is Museums on Us?
Designed to provide a benefit to Bank of America and Merrill Lynch customers and increase access to the arts across the United States, Museums on Us offers free general admission to more than 150 museums in some 90 cities. The program brings new audiences and increased attention to participating organizations, which range from some of the nation’s most celebrated museums to regional gems and include art, science and history museums, as well as other cultural institutions.

You won’t want to miss this evening of enchanted discovery as we proudly present Immersion into Compounded Time and the Paintings of Firelei Báez. Considered one of the most compelling voices in contemporary art at this time, Báez tends to work in large and empowering scales, not purely to suggest importance, but also to create a physical, enveloping space to give voices that may have been forgotten the chance to captivate the audience once again.

Join us for the evening at the Mennello Museum of American Art, and engage with imaginings of goddesses and historical peoples of the African and Caribbean diasporas through the eyes of world-renowned artist, Firelei Báez. Witness as her blending of time and deep personal connections weave stories in paint of what it means to be a diverse people. A bilingual catalog will be available.

The reception will feature Caribbean-inspired fare by Runway Catering, music by DJ Stereo 77, and a cash bar.

MEMBERS-ONLY PREVIEW: 5:30-6:30PM
Museum members receive free admission to the event, and drink for free during the preview!

PUBLIC RECEPTION: 6:30-8:00PM
$10 tickets:

Artist Firelei Báez will present a FREE talk, on the occasion of the Mennello Museum of American Art’s new exhibit IMMERSION INTO COMPOUNDED TIME AND THE PAINTINGS OF FIRELEI BÁEZ.

Please RSVP here.

Báez is best known through her extraordinary paintings of lush landscaped-figures, intricately patterned tignons, and otherworldly bodies with striking eyes. Here, she considers the reality of ones current social and the historic construction of cultural self in America. These complex, intersectional bodies and symbols alongside large-scale portraits are painted in vibrant, swirling colors, which intermingle time and character. For Báez, “identity is malleable, negotiated,” and given strength by the female body and mythology of her being.

IMMERSION INTO COMPOUNDED TIME AND THE PAINTINGS OF FIRELEI BÁEZ is curated by Katherine Navarro, Mennello Museum of American Art. A fully illustrated bilingual catalog on the exhibition has been published, and will be available for purchase and artist signing.

Firelei Báez was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. She earned her BFA at The Cooper Union School of Art in 2004, participated in The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2008, and later earned her MFA at Hunter College in 2010. Báez currently lives and works in New York City. She has held residencies at The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace, The Lower East Side Print Shop and The Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace. Báez has had solo exhibitions at Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Pérez Art Museum Miami, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, among others. Báez was included in the 2018 Berlin Biennial, the United States Biennial Prospect.3, New Orleans, the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time’s LA>LA exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles and at the 2017 Venice Biennale with the Pinchuk Art Foundation’s Future Generation’s Art Prize exhibition. Her work is in the collections of the BNY Mellon Art Collection, Pittsburgh, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Sindika Dokolo Foundation Collection, Luanda, Angola, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Jaffa, Isreal. She is currently represented by Kavi Gupta, Chicago and James Cohan, New York.

Every second Sunday of the month is Free Family Funday!

More information: mennellomuseum.org/freefamilyfunday