Ursula Launch: Celebrating Firelei Báez and Issue 16 with Casa Dragones
Please join us during the opening weekend of ‘Firelei Báez. Feet squelching on wet grass, nourished by uncertainty' at Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street to celebrate the recent release of Ursula issue No. 16 featuring the portfolio ‘The Earth That Remains,’ by artist Firelei Báez.
In addition to Báez’s portfolio, this issue of Ursula features a cover story about the veteran Los Angeles art collector and patron Eileen Harris Norton as well as multiple other pieces carrying the same thread of art-as-life, with no gap between—the designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s bonds with her Surrealist artist friends; our first regular columnist, Greg de Cuir Jr, on the films of Christopher Harris; Steven Watson’s incomparable oral histories of the downtown New York underground; Leah Singer’s deep-dive into Alice B. Toklas and her famous cookbook; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan’s belief in art as both a symbol of and a force for inclusion.
This event is free to attend. Guests may come and go, peruse and purchase the new issue of Ursula, enjoy a glass of Casa Dragones tequila and take in the exhibitions on view, ‘Firelei Báez’ & ‘Carol Rama. I See You You See Me.’
This event is free; however, reservations are recommended.
Click here to register.
Tequila for this event is generously sponsored by Casa Dragones.
About ‘Firelei Báez. Feet squelching on wet grass, nourished by uncertainty’
On the heels of two major solo museum exhibitions in 2025, Firelei Báez’s exhibition at our 22nd street gallery in Chelsea unveils an ambitious, enveloping constellation of radiant new paintings and works on paper, along with new large-scale bronze sculptures. Across two floors, Báez extends her ongoing engagement with colonial legacies and the natural, spiritual and cosmic reverberations of the African diaspora. A storyteller and world maker, Báez works within the tradition of history painting while quietly undoing the very conventions through which histories are fixed and made legible. In this presentation, she subtly shifts her focus away from the discernible, if chimerical, figures that occupy her previous bodies of work to achieve a more atmospheric sensibility, one that invites a broader, deeper understanding of how bodies and nature shape our experience of being in the world.
About Firelei Báez
Firelei Báez draws upon African diasporic histories, reimagining them to explore new possibilities for the future. Báez received an MFA from Hunter College, a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Since 2024, Báez has been the subject of her first major U.S. survey, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Des Moines Art Center, before traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where it remains on view through May 2026. Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions, including ‘The Milk of Dreams’ at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani, and the inaugural installation of the ICA Watershed in Boston (2021). Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), Rotterdam; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; and Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Báez has participated in numerous group exhibitions at institutions including the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. She is the recipient of several major awards, including the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2020), the Artes Mundi Prize (2021), the Philip Guston Rome Prize (2021), and the Cooper Union President’s Citation (2022). Her work is held in prominent public and private collections worldwide, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Pérez Art Museum Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About Ursula Magazine
Ursula is a quarterly magazine published by Hauser & Wirth, that celebrates the artistic achievement and creativity of our artists and those beyond. Through both the printed magazine and digital content platform, Ursula champions artistic practices that challenge and interrogate the future, highlighting a diverse range of contemporary culture that Hauser & Wirth finds compelling.
Featuring stories from the worlds of art, design, film, books, food, and sustainability, Ursula invites readers to think critically, ask questions, and engage with the ideas shaping our world. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Ursula appeals to a broad, inquisitive readership, from dedicated insiders to curious observers.
