Coumba Samba: Stars and Stripes at the Whitney Museum

On the Whitney's first floor, Coumba Samba, an artist born in 2000, presents Stars and Stripes, running through January 18, 2027. Samba makes installations that borrow forms from the built environment around the world, using them to expose the social, political, and economic structures those forms stand for.

The core of the show is a group of sculptures modeled on depleted uranium shells. Tall and pencil-shaped, they are lit in a dark gallery next to a red and blue wall. Each is painted in the colors of the flags of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Namibia, Niger, or the United States. Samba works with the geometry and bold color of modernist abstraction, and turns the stripes, palettes, and graphics of national identity against themselves, revealing the violent histories they conceal.

The African countries referenced were among the world's main sources of uranium ore during the Cold War, and many of their mines were run by foreign companies. The Shinkolobwe mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo supplied most of the ore for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In 2003, allegations that Iraq had tried to obtain five hundred tons of uranium ore from Niger were used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

Samba sees the global nuclear order as resting on a geography of extraction laid down by colonial powers. These nations do not receive the full economic benefit of their resources, yet they bear the brunt of the environmental damage. By aiming at the racist hierarchies of the colonial era, the work points to their continuing effects on African people, places, and sovereignty.

The exhibition is organized by guest curator Rujeko Hockley with curatorial assistant Antonia Pocock, with major support from the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation. An Open Studio for Teens connected to the show takes place on December 4, 4–6 pm.