Political Animals
Political Animals at the Baltimore Museum of Art is the first U.S. museum exhibition of Omar Ba, one of today’s leading contemporary African artists.
The Geneva- and Dakar-based painter is acclaimed for his site-specific installations and kaleidoscopic, large-scale compositions on black backgrounds. His art merges the intimacy and detail often associated with drawing with the scale and grandeur of contemporary history painting.
Thematically, Ba’s work explores the exercise of power in all its guises, exemplifying the Aristotelian dictum that humans are by nature political animals.
His images also encompass a range of people and subjects—from African dictators to U.S. foreign aid—as well as real and imaginary creatures that together create a rich social tapestry.
The exhibition includes:
- approximately fifteen paintings made on canvas and corrugated cardboard supports,
- inventive modular works made using shoeboxes, and
- a site-specific mural.
Experience Omar Ba: Political Animals, Nov. 20, 2022–April 2, 2023 at the Baltimore Museum of Art.