Tenth Annual Eleanor and Frank Freed Lecture
“Issues of Identity and Artistic Expression: The Case of Wifredo Lam”
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from Malba - Fundación Costantini

Speaker: Lowery Stokes Sims, curator, the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Noted Afro-Chinese Cuban Surrealist artist Wifredo Lam (1902–1982) spent a lifetime navigating cultural heritages in numerous locales. Born in Cuba to a Spanish African mother and Chinese father, he worked in Spain and France before returning to Cuba during World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, he lived alternately in Cuba, France, and Italy. He subsequently had contact with artistic groups in Sweden, Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela, among others.

Lam was both a believer in and a skeptic of the Lucumí (Santaría) religion into which he was initiated. Nevertheless, he used its tenets and beliefs as the basis for his signature pictorial language and style. Specific works from throughout Lam’s career explore this multifaceted and complicated artist who defined globalism in the arts before it was a buzzword.

A specialist in modern and contemporary art, Lowery Stokes Sims was executive director and then president of the Studio Museum in Harlem, 2000 to 2007. She is known for her expertise in the work of African, Latino, Native, and Asian American artists. She is the author of "Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923–1982," published by the University of Texas Press in 2002.