Coumba Samba builds site-specific installations out of the vocabulary of minimalism and then points it somewhere uncomfortable: here, at the machinery of nuclear power and the African resource extraction that feeds it, with the American flag as her starting form. It occupies the Whitney's lobby gallery, the one space you can enter without a ticket, which changes who encounters it. If you want contemporary art that argues rather than decorates, start on the ground floor.
What to expect
A single immersive installation filling the museum's ground-floor lobby gallery, made of arranged objects, materials and abstraction rather than hung pictures. Expect to walk through and around the work, to read the wall text for the extraction and military-industrial framing, and to find it a short, dense counterpoint to the ticketed floors above.
Good to know
- Whitney Museum, 99 Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District; A/C/E/L to 14th Street-Eighth Avenue
- The lobby gallery is free to enter without museum admission
- The rest of the museum requires a ticket, and members enter free
- The High Line's southern entrance is directly outside if you want to continue on foot
- Small in footprint, so it pairs well with a full visit upstairs rather than a trip on its own
- Wheelchair accessible with step-free entry from Gansevoort Street
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Common questions
Do I need a museum ticket?
No. Stars and Stripes is installed in the Whitney's lobby gallery, which is free to enter.
Who is Coumba Samba?
A Senegalese American artist based in New York, known for site-specific installations that draw on modernist abstraction and minimalism.
What is the work about?
It deconstructs symbols tied to the US military-industrial complex, examining nuclear power development and African resource extraction.
More at Whitney Museum of American Art
