Subheadline: The Senegalese American artist transforms the visual language of modernist abstraction into a pointed examination of nuclear power, colonial extraction, and the lasting consequences of global inequality.
NEW YORK — The colors of a national flag can represent belonging, pride, and collective identity. But they can also conceal histories of conflict, exploitation, and unequal power. In Stars and Stripes, on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art from September 19, 2026, through January 18, 2027, artist Coumba Samba reconsiders those familiar symbols through an installation that connects modernist abstraction with the global history of uranium extraction and nuclear weapons.
Presented in the museum’s first-floor gallery, the installation marks Samba’s first solo museum presentation. The Senegalese American artist, who is based in New York, uses geometric forms and bold colors to investigate the social, political, and economic systems embedded in objects and visual structures that might initially appear neutral. <Cite refs={[“turn571670view1″,”turn571670view0”]}/>
At the center of the exhibition are sculptures modeled after depleted-uranium shells. Painted in the flag colors of the United States, Gabon, Namibia, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the forms connect national identity with the material histories of military power. The result challenges viewers to consider what national symbols communicate—and what their familiar graphics may leave unspoken.
The political meaning behind abstraction
Modernist abstraction is often associated with an emphasis on pure form: geometry, color, rhythm, and the relationship between shapes. Samba draws on that visual vocabulary but redirects attention toward the structures that shape political and economic life.
In Stars and Stripes, the sculptures’ simplified silhouettes and intense colors create an immediate visual language. Yet their resemblance to military projectiles disrupts any straightforward reading of the installation as an exercise in formal design.
The flags introduce another layer of meaning. Their colors identify nations, but they also connect the work to questions of sovereignty, international power, and the uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of resource extraction.
By bringing these elements together, Samba makes abstraction a means of historical inquiry. Geometry becomes more than an aesthetic arrangement; it becomes a way to examine how systems of power are constructed, represented, and maintained.
The title itself invokes the familiar nickname for the American flag. In the context of the installation, however, the phrase also points toward the broader political relationships that connect the United States to African countries whose mineral resources have played a role in the development of nuclear technology.
Uranium, colonial extraction, and nuclear history
The installation’s central historical concern is uranium. During the Cold War, several African nations referenced in Samba’s work were important sources of uranium ore, and many mines were operated by foreign companies. The extraction of these resources connected African territories to international nuclear programs while raising enduring questions about who benefited economically and who bore the environmental consequences. <Cite refs={[“turn571670view1″,”turn416966search8”]}/>
One especially significant example is the Shinkolobwe mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Uranium ore from the mine supplied most of the material used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according to the Whitney’s exhibition text. That connection places the history of nuclear warfare alongside the colonial and industrial systems through which its essential materials were obtained. <Cite refs={[“turn571670view1”]}/>
The work also addresses the political use of claims about uranium. In 2003, allegations that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium ore from Niger were invoked in the arguments used to justify the United States invasion of Iraq. The episode illustrates how the language of nuclear security can become entangled with geopolitical narratives and military decisions.
Samba’s installation brings these histories into the present without treating them as isolated events. Instead, it suggests that contemporary nuclear power and military infrastructure remain connected to older systems of extraction established under colonial rule.
National flags as symbols—and shields
Flags are among the most recognizable forms of national identity. Their colors and patterns can compress complicated histories into a graphic image that is immediately understood. That familiarity gives them considerable symbolic power, but it can also make the political and economic relationships behind them less visible.
Samba uses this tension as a central element of Stars and Stripes. The flags’ visual languages are reproduced on sculptural forms associated with military technology, creating a direct encounter between national representation and the material instruments of warfare.
The work does not treat the countries it references as interchangeable. Instead, their presence establishes a relationship between the United States and African nations whose resources have been implicated in the development of nuclear systems. The installation draws attention to the unequal terms on which resources have been extracted and to the lasting effects on communities, territories, and national sovereignty.
The visual impact depends partly on the contrast between recognizable color schemes and unsettling sculptural forms. The viewer may first register a familiar palette, then recognize the association with military hardware. That shift complicates the act of looking, making the symbols themselves objects of scrutiny.
A first solo museum presentation
Samba’s practice draws on sculpture, installation, and performance to investigate how institutional structures affect individual and collective identities. Her work considers how political systems influence the material world and how objects acquire meaning through the environments in which they appear.
Stars and Stripes brings these concerns into a museum setting, where visitors can encounter the installation as both a visual composition and a framework for historical reflection. Its presentation at the Whitney is significant as the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, giving her work a dedicated institutional platform. <Cite refs={[“turn571670view1″,”turn416966search8”]}/>
The exhibition is organized by Rujeko Hockley, Guest Curator, with Antonia Pocock, Curatorial Assistant. Its placement on the first floor makes the installation part of the museum’s public-facing experience rather than an object encountered only after navigating a larger sequence of galleries. <Cite refs={[“turn571670view1″,”turn571670view0”]}/>
That setting reinforces the exhibition’s broader questions about public symbols. Museums are spaces where objects are interpreted, preserved, and placed within cultural narratives. Samba’s work invites visitors to reconsider how those narratives are formed and whose histories receive attention.
Looking beyond the surface
The power of Stars and Stripes lies in its refusal to separate visual form from the systems that give it meaning. Its colors, geometric shapes, and sculptural silhouettes initially offer the clarity of modernist abstraction, but their historical associations complicate that clarity.
The installation asks viewers to look beyond the surface of national identity and consider the networks of extraction, industrial production, and military power that sustain the contemporary world. It also directs attention to the unequal consequences of these systems, particularly for African communities whose territories have supplied resources while absorbing environmental and political costs.
Samba does not need an elaborate visual vocabulary to raise these questions. Instead, she transforms familiar symbols into a structure for examining histories that are often hidden behind them.
At the Whitney, Stars and Stripes makes abstraction a tool for confronting difficult questions about history and responsibility. By linking the colors of flags to the material history of nuclear weapons, Samba encourages viewers to reconsider what symbols represent, what they conceal, and how the past continues to shape the present.
