[Wifredo Lam] pursued his own dialogue with African and Afro-diasporic visual cultures even as the Parisian avant-garde exoticized his heritage. That tension -- being racialized while renegotiating the frame imposed on him -- remains central to understanding his work. MoMA's exhibition leaves this context mostly unexplored; instead, much of this complexity is taken up by the excellent catalog.--Clara Maria Apostaitos "Hyperallergic"

Perfectly proportioned, beautifully installed, [this exhibition] lets a figure who has long been defined by associative labels be the distinctive and peerless artist-poet he was.--Holland Cotter "The New York Times"

He's the opposite of an academic holed up in an ivory tower writing theory; he was having those conversations on the ground and in his work.--Lisa Yin Zhang "Hyperallergic"

An outsider wherever he went, Lam was bitterly conscious of the European colonialist politics that had produced him, but also deeply in tune with of the Afro-Cuban spirituality that was his heritage. And it's the spiritual sensibility in his art -- his vision of a world in which animal, plant and human are inseparable -- that sets him apart from standard-issue Surrealism, as will surely be evident in 'Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream.'--Holland Cotter "The New York Times"

[The] book brings new perspectives to Lam's worldly life and lyrical art.--Alexandria Sillio "Galerie Magazine"

[A] well-deserved tribute he never received in his lifetime.--Ana Vidal Egea "El Pais"

The product of years of work and dozens of collaborations with institutions and collectors around the world, 'When I Don't Sleep, I Dream' shows the entire sweep of a career that straddled eras. Lam is best-known for agglomerations of elongated and mysterious figures that borrow from cubism and surrealism, although the exhibition also shows different sides of this artist: lushly colored and textured pieces that verge on abstraction, sculptural heads that point toward the artist's African roots, early figurative works, and the weird cacophonies of forms that the artist made through the 1960s and 70s.--Veronica Esposito "The Guardian"

Publisher: Museum of Modern Art

Pub date: 2025-11-18

Length: 288 pages