Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art

July 13–Sept 30, 2018

Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art investigates contemporary art practices that preserve and foreground Indigenous American notions of the built environment and natural world. The three words in the exhibition’s title are Quechua, the Indigenous language most spoken in the Americas. Each holds more than one meaning: pacha denotes universe, time, space, nature, or world; llaqta signifies place, country, community, or town; and wasichay means to build or to construct a house. Influenced by the richness of these concepts, the artworks explore the conceptual frameworks inherited from, and also still alive in, Indigenous groups in Mexico and South America that include the Quechua, Aymara, Maya, Aztec, and Taíno, among others. 

The show features the work of seven emerging Latinx artists based in the United States and Puerto Rico: william cordova, Livia Corona Benjamin, Jorge González, Guadalupe Maravilla, Claudia Peña Salinas, Ronny Quevedo, and Clarissa Tossin. Their works investigate the complex relationship that indigenous and vernacular notions of construction, land, space, and cosmology have had in the history of modern and contemporary art and architecture in the Americas.

This exhibition is organized by Marcela Guerrero, assistant curator, with Alana Hernandez, curatorial project assistant.

Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, sponsored by

Significant support for this exhibition is also provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the Whitney’s National Committee.

Additional support is provided by AMEXCID with the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York, the Garcia Family Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

Curatorial research and travel were funded by the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation.

Artworks

4 circles on paper.

1

william cordova

(b. 1971, Lima, Peru; lives Miami)
Black and white photograph of a grain silo.

2

Livia Corona Benjamin

(b. 1975, Ensenada, Mexico; lives New York)
Room with thatched walls and chairs.

3

Jorge González

(b. 1981, San Juan, Puerto Rico; lives San Juan)
Ink drawing in color with symbols.

4

Guadalupe Maravilla (formerly known as Irvin Morazán)

b. 1976, San Salvador, El Salvador; lives Brooklyn)
Abstract sculpture with yarn and frog.

5

Claudia Peña Salinas

(b. 1975, Montemorelos, Mexico; lives Brooklyn)
A black soccer ball as a globe.

6

Ronny Quevedo

(b. 1981, Guayaquil, Ecuador; lives New York)
Three women posed in a line in front of a grey building.

7

Clarissa Tossin

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A woman in a leopard suit scaling a wall
A woman in a leopard suit scaling a wall

Clarissa Tossin, still from Ch'u Mayaa, 2017. Video, color, sound, 17:56 min. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Film and Video Committee 2019.320. © Clarissa Tossin

“The cultures that these artists are looking towards are not pre-Columbian, in the strict sense of the word, in terms that they're not frozen in time. They're not dead cultures, they're still very much alive.”
—Marcela Guerrero, assistant curator

Hear from the exhibition’s artists and curator about selected works from the exhibition.

View guide

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 12 works

In the News

“As indicated by its Quechuan title, to describe the world and its structures in both nuanced yet manifold ways is, in turn, the central premise of this exhibition.”
—Cultbytes

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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