Frieze reviews Born in Flames: Feminist Futures featuring María Berrío and Wangechi Mutu

Visitors to ‘Born in Flames: Feminist Futures’ at The Bronx Museum of Arts will first encounter Wangechi Mutu’s Heelers (2016): stiletto-shaped clay sculptures – with resin noticeably embedded in the material – displayed on high supports in the gallery. The installation resembles a shrine and invites a grounded moment of pause – an  homage to the feminine. Organized by Jasmine Wahi, the Holly Block Social Justice Curator at the Bronx Museum, the exhibition is committed to celebrating the specificity of intersectional feminist consciousness. Rather than couch this reverential tone in a universal entry point, Wahi preserves the fundamental intention of collective space cultivated by women and femmes of colour by marking it with this spiritual crossing…

…María Berrío’s first foray into sculpture, The Petition (2019) is situated between Baez’s two works. Berrío’s work features a female figure – either dead or in repose – surrounded by looming birds. The sculpture calls forth the abandoned and subsequently destroyed Black woman archetype, left for dead and left to reside in perpetuity…

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Image: María Berrío, installation view of The Petition, 2020. Bronze with patina. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro. Photo: Bruce White