art coumba samba young artist

Coumba Samba, a 25-year-old artist based in New York, is featured in Cultured's 2025 Young Artists list. Her recent installation at Kunsthalle Basel uses 176 steel poles spaced four inches apart to evoke the U.S.-Mexico border wall, referencing policies from the George W. Bush and Trump administrations. Born in New York and partly raised in Senegal, Samba creates work about the permeability and absurdity of international borders. Her show “Red Gas” at Arcadia Missa incorporates found home radiators painted with colors from a photo of former Senegalese President Macky Sall shaking hands with Vladimir Putin at the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit, blending abstraction with global politics.