SANTIAGO YAHUARCANI ENTERS THE MoMA COLLECTION
Crisis Galería announced the recent acquisition of the painting Cosmovisión Huitoto (2022) by the outstanding indigenous artist Santiago Yahuarcani by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA). This extraordinary large format work, made with natural dyes and acrylic paint on llanchama, is one of the largest produced by the artist with more than two meters high and four meters wide.
The work was acquired thanks to a donation from the Latin American and Caribbean Fund of that institution and the Hochschild Correa Collection. This acquisition is fundamental to the history of contemporary Peruvian and Latin American art, as it is MoMA's first acquisition of a work by an indigenous Peruvian artist and the first by an indigenous artist of this size.
Cosmovisión Huitoto is a central piece in Yahuarcani's vast career, exploring various aspects of Huitoto life. Intricately and profoundly composed, the work portrays the culture of his native community, which has endured despite centuries of genocide and oppressive policies. Through iconographies depicting various myths, tales and experiences of his ancestors that the artist knew as a child, it offers us a glimpse into the rich cultural life of this people. At the same time, it is a witness to the resilience of the Huitoto people throughout the challenges they have faced in their existence.
Another of the motifs portrayed in the piece is the COVID-19 pandemic, which the artist symbolizes through a kind of giant ape, the product of a vision he had during his dreams. Pebas, the town in Loreto where the artist lives, was devastated by this disease. However, Yahuarcani not only narrates the past, but also engages in a dialogue from the present to a speculative future. His work is a vivid reminder of the significant connections between territory, memory, identity and the enduring relevance of indigenous cosmologies in the contemporary world.
This 2024, Santiago Yahuarcani participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale in the exhibition Strangers Everywhere / Stranieri Ouvunque, an important milestone in his career that reflects the growing global interest in artistic voices from the global south. This acquisition by MoMA is in line with a renewed focus on indigenous and Latin American narratives, highlighting the cultural and political relevance of his works in the reconfiguration of the international art canon.
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Santiago Yahuarcani, Cosmovisión Huitoto, 2022, natural dyes and acrylic on llanchama, 210 x 410 cm
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