Steven Beyer’s “Babies” embody a richly layered visual dialogue on the politics of sex, race, and religion. In this installation, Beyer presented six bronze putti—three black and three white. These works are part of a series of ten in which five distinct gestures are realized in both black and white finishes. The extremely formal and exaggeratedly elegant presentation is ultimately ironic, as it serves to establish conventions that the artist questions and undermines. These putti constitute a sharp departure from the Western traditions from which they are drawn, as they all have African-American