Wifredo Lam, the artist who bridged the Caribbean and Europe, finally gets major retrospective at MoMA

"Eskil, one of the sons of Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982), notes that his father was at once well-known and not known. Lam's life, like his work, was complex and therefore difficult to summarize and classify, which led him to be treated for a long time as a marginal figure within the history of Western art, despite being one of the pioneers of modernism. Now, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York wants to pay him the well-deserved tribute he never received in his lifetime."

"When I Don't Sleep, I Dream is the first major retrospective of Lam's work in the United States and the exhibition with which Christophe Cherix debuts as the new director of MoMA. Although the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana refused to lend any works for the retrospective, the curatorial team has managed to assemble more than a hundred of Lam's most significant pieces to reconstruct his artistic trajectory."

"The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, collaborations, books, and a short documentary about the artist. The main attraction is Grande Composition, Lam's largest and most ambitious work (4.2 meters wide by 2.7 meters high), which has not been publicly displayed for 62 years and which the museum recently acquired from a private collector after several years of negotiations. This artwork sets it apart from other previous retrospectives of the artist's work"

Wilfredo Lam lived a complex, transnational artistic life that complicated classification and led to marginalization within Western art history despite his modernist innovations. MoMA presents When I Don't Sleep, I Dream, the first major U.S. retrospective of Lam, assembling more than a hundred works including paintings, drawings, collaborations, books, and a short documentary. The museum acquired Grande Composition, Lam's largest work (4.2m by 2.7m), unseen publicly for 62 years. The Museum of Fine Arts in Havana refused loans, but curators reconstructed Lam's trajectory. Lam described his art as an act of decolonization. Personal tragedies and involvement in the Spanish Civil War shaped major works such as The Civil War.

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