Image: L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, London
Sammy Baloji will present his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, beginning September 18, 2026. Titled ‘When Extraction Becomes Form It Speaks in Borrowed Tongues,’ the exhibition will examine the continuing effects of extractive economies on land, people and cultural forms. Admission to the Wexner Center’s galleries will be free.
The exhibition is described as a multimedia exploration of how extraction shapes both environments and everyday visual culture. Its scope includes architectural design and ornament, extending the subject beyond mines, industrial sites or damaged landscapes to consider the forms that economic systems leave behind in ordinary surroundings.
Baloji’s presentation will take place at the Wexner Center for the Arts, a contemporary arts institution at The Ohio State University. The center, located at 1871 North High Street in Columbus, presents exhibitions alongside film, performing arts, education and talks. Its galleries and visitor facilities are currently subject to repair-related access changes, with the High Street entrance closed and an accessible entrance near College Road remaining open, according to the center’s visitor information.
The September opening forms part of a broader exhibition changeover at the Wexner Center. The institution’s weekly announcement also lists ‘Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will have revelations along felled branches and longer roots/routes,’ described as the Lagos-based artist’s first solo exhibition in Columbus. That presentation will connect global current events, plants, people and communities across multiple media.
A third exhibition, ‘sweat variant (Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born): where you go full, volume 5,’ will extend the artists’ performance practice into the gallery as a multisensory environment concerned with embodied memory. These exhibitions are separate from Baloji’s presentation, although all are announced as opening on September 18. The center also lists Léonard Pongo’s film ‘Tales from the Source’ as on view beginning September 1; the film moves between documentary and speculative fiction and treats land as memory, spirit and force.
The available announcement identifies Baloji’s exhibition as multimedia and specifies its focus on extraction, land, people, architecture and ornament, but does not provide a closing date or a detailed checklist of works. The exhibition will open September 18 at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, with free gallery admission.
