Firelei Báez delivers ‘the money shot’

The late Des Moines artist Don Dunagan liked to say, “Artists are somewhat cool, but art thieves get the hot girls.” He had a point. I asked my Internet Movie Database (IMDb) app how many movies have been made about artists, and it returned 75. The same question about art thieves returned 96. 

There is certainly more action and glamour in the process of stealing art compared to creating it, but this still seems strange. Ever since Vincenzo Perugia stole Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” from Paris’ Louvre Museum in 1911, art thieves have been celebrated by most media. In fact, “Mona Lisa” was little known outside the art world before that theft. Perugia and “Mona” became uber-famous remaining at large for two years before they were caught. His defense claimed he was just returning the painting to Italy and that Napoleon was the real thief. That worked. Perugia spent just seven months in jail. 

Art thieves are usually smart guys in the movies and are played by suave stars like Audrey Hepburn, Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Not so much in real life. Our favorite art story this month is about how the FBI recently recovered two paintings stolen four decades ago from the University of New Mexico’s Harwood Museum of Art. The FBI investigation was prompted by a phone call from freelance business writer Lou Schachter who had connected that theft with another from the University of Arizona Museum of Art. That latter art was returned in 2017 after 32 years. Then a 2022 documentary profiling the thieves included a still photo showing the stolen paintings from New Mexico — in the thieves’ living room!

In the post-Woke language of art, “appropriation” is the new art theft, and it is worse because it is also rape. Careers are made “re-appropriating” such “stolen” art. Like most things driven by politics, “re-appropriated” art usually lacks authenticity. One giant exception is Firelei Báez whose solo exhibition at Des Moines Art Center is playing through Sept. 21.

Báez, who grew up in a border town between Haiti and Dominican Republic, walks as comfortably through the minefields of “re-appropriation” as one of the Voodoo spirits who advise her. Admirers do not need to read a curator’s notes to understand Báez’s imagery, or its connection to her subject matter. The canvasses and gouaches in this 2,000-square-foot exhibition show her entire work history. Historical maps are often painted over. In “Linyon,” she uses indigo dyes, a driving force of the agricultural slave trade, to create the symbols of the Black Panther movement.

In the previous DMAC show “Hurricane Season,” Báez contributed an arresting ink drawing, “Palmas for Marti,” that depicted trees sprouting from the loins of the legs of lady dancers. That imagery returns here. A recurring image is that of eyes dominating other senses. Sometimes, eyes follow one as other sensory organs disappear — “sans nose, sans ears, sans everything” as Shakespeare put it in his similarly imagined realm of Arden Forest. 

The masterpiece in the show is an entire room that recreates “A Drexcyean chronocommons. (To win the war, you fought it sideways.)” Reappropriating history and mythology, Báez tells the stories of Drexcyea, a mythical underwater realm of spirit children who jumped or were pushed off slave ships. Unlike Báez’s eyes paintings, this is all sensory. Fans, perforated light filters (made out of FEMA tarpaulins), and induced sounds emulate spirits. 

Bottom line — “Firelei Báez” delivers the money shot in DMAC’s two years, four exhibitions commitment to Caribbean art.

July touts

Moberg Gallery features the art of Dr. Seuss into September.

Quilt maker Ben Millet is a one-person “Iowa Artists 2025” exhibit at the DMAC beginning July 26. 

Olson-Larsen’s annual Landscape Show plays till July 26. 

“Stars of Tomorrow” is a best-kept secret often lost in Des Moines Metro Opera’s season. July 19, 2 p.m. at Sheslow Auditorium. Reservations are free at https://dmmo.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0SQj000001bIevMAE.