The primary time that I and plenty of others encountered the fantastic, semi-abstract, vividly coloured textile artworks by Claudia Alarcón and the artwork collective she helped kind, Silät, was on the sixtieth Worldwide Artwork Exhibition on the 2024 Venice Biennale. A multigenerational collective of 100 Indigenous Wichí ladies weavers from northern Salta, Argentina, Silät got here collectively in 2023 when a earlier group disbanded. Its identify, I’ve realized, means “message,” though elsewhere I’ve additionally learn “notice” and “alert.”
Communal weaving by ladies utilizing the fibers of the forest plant chaguar, coloured by pure dyes, has lengthy been elementary in matrilocal Wichí society: Of their mythology, ladies lived within the heavens as stars and descended to earth on chaguar ropes. This has generally concerned yicas, handwoven luggage with intricate geometric patterns which are used for carrying meals and convey reminiscences and narratives. “Un coro de yicas” (A refrain of yicas) (2024–25), a towering wall set up of 100 yicas, every made by a member of the collective and with a novel design, encapsulates the spectacular vary and number of these artworks.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät, “The Three Marias” (2025), hand-spun chaguar fibre, woven in yica sew (picture Gregory Volk/Hyperallergic)
Argentine curator Andrei Fernández, in addition to María Carri and Alarcón, have been instrumental in propelling Wichí weaving into revolutionary new types, particularly by way of large-scale works and modern artwork contexts. The tremendously enhanced visibility and financial potential which have resulted are superb issues given the dire threats Wichís face from cattle-farming settlers, deforestation, poverty, racism, and governmental abuse.
Massive, communally made textile works (as much as round six by six-and-a-half toes), displayed on the partitions like work, make use of the normal yica sew that Wichí ladies have been utilizing for hundreds of years. They end in web-like buildings that one each seems to be at and thru. Like eyes, they’re open to the world and the heavens, channeling land, celestial our bodies, and human and nonhuman animals. Two items by Alarcón herself within the viewing room make use of the extra tightly woven vintage sew. I counsel searching for them out; they’re nice.
Claudia Alarcón & Silät, “Anochecer (Nay’I’j ta honatsi)” (Nightfall) (2024), hand-spun chaguar fibre, woven in yica sew (picture Gregory Volk/Hyperallergic)
With its irregular geometric shapes and zigzagging bands in a number of colours, “Los caminos de la presencia wichí” (The paths of the Wichí presence) (2024) looks like a voyage, or maybe a number of ones, not a static paintings. It’s good to look from afar, up shut, and from the edges at its fluctuating shapes and colour gradations. This work feels very beneficiant and soulful, as do the others.
“Nosotras, hijas de las estrellas” (We, daughters of the celebs) (2025) connects the current to the mythological Wichí origin story. Yellow shapes that resemble stars glow close to the highest. Under them is what is likely to be the merest trace of a human determine, whereas grey sections woven into a complete are just like the evening assembled in items. Russet and off-white zigzags are pure, coursing vitality and appear to oscillate and pulsate. That is one in every of a number of celestial-themed items within the present.
Geometric abstraction in these works intersects with totally different types of South American and Modernist abstraction. I’m struck, although, by Alarcón’s evaluation: “The geometric shapes we make in the fabric have meanings; each one is a message. Some shapes reference birds, footprints, cat’s eyes, our landscape […].” A profound reference to the surroundings that the Wichís have inhabited for millennia is palpable in these bold, deeply transferring textiles. The entire exhibition asserts the significance of Wichí aesthetics, cosmology, and society at this very precarious time.
Set up view of Claudia Alarcón & Silät at James Cohan Gallery (picture Izzy Leung)
Shut-up view of “Anochecer (Nay’I’j ta honatsi)” (picture Gregory Volk/Hyperallergic)
Shut-up view of “The Three Marias” (picture Gregory Volk/Hyperallergic)
Claudia Alarcón & Silät continues at James Cohan Gallery (52 Walker Avenue, Tribeca, Manhattan) by means of Could 10. The exhibition was curated by Andrei Fernández.
