MoMA - Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream
Fri, Nov 07
|MoMA
Experience Wifredo Lam’s visionary fusion of Afro-Caribbean culture and modern art. When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream is the first full-career U.S. retrospective of this groundbreaking Cuban artist.
Time & Location
Nov 07, 2025, 7:00 AM – Mar 28, 2026, 10:50 PM
MoMA, 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, USA
About the event
Member Previews: November 7–9, 2025
Public Exhibition: November 10, 2025 – March 28, 2026
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Visit MoMA.org
“I am not interested in painting for painting’s sake,” declared Wifredo Lam, the Cuban-born artist whose bold, hybrid compositions became a powerful act of artistic and cultural decolonization. Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream is the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective to trace the artist’s six-decade career across continents, mediums, and radical shifts in form and ideology.
The exhibition features over 150 works, including paintings, drawings, prints, illustrated books, and ceramics, presenting Lam’s full trajectory—from early academic studies in Spain to the politically charged works of his later years. After joining the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War and moving through Europe and the Caribbean, Lam’s return to Cuba in 1941 catalyzed a transformative engagement with Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions, which shaped his signature style—blending human, animal, and…