“Black Earth Rising” isn’t original, and the art’s mediocre. It’s another dollop of what’s served at every museum hosting the Victim Olympics: insistent, laborious, and rote.

Artist Joyce J. Scott at the Baltimore Museum of Art with “Spring to Fall (Four Seasons),” 1991. The museum will open a retrospective of Scott’s 50-year career on Sunday.

The piece was shown as part of the 2023 Biennial of the Americas in Denver, then as part of the 2024 Dak’Art Biennale in Dakar, Senegal. The Baltimore museum has acquired it.