Donna Huanca: MAGMA SLIT

Lower Level Galleries

April 02, 2022 — February 05, 2023

Bolivian-American artist Donna Huanca (b. 1980, Chicago, IL) creates work that destabilizes the male gaze while exploring femme and indigenous narratives and mark-making. Huanca’s installations encompass painting, sculpture, and live performance, and are characteristically created for, and integrated with, the specific architectural spaces in which they are presented. Her art is deeply invested in ritual practice as a means for transcendence, meditation, and transformation.

For her commissioned exhibition at the Henry, the artist has created an architecturally immersive environment, consisting of a vast stage of interlocking ovoid/cellular forms, landscaped with white sand and supporting six mirrored “screen” sculptures, along with a selection of other sculptural work. Four mural-sized paintings surround the stage, each representing one of the four seasons. As viewers journey through the space, they are invited to experience a kaleidoscopic engagement with their own reflection and the works, as well as sound and olfactory pieces. A complete sensory experience, the installation aims to evoke a slippage of space and time inviting participants to both find and lose themselves. Throughout the length of the exhibition, the Henry, the artist, and cultural performers of all genres will work together to produce a series of programs in dialogue with the exhibition’s themes.

Huanca’s exhibition is the first commissioned work supported by the Richard E. and Jane Lang Davis New Works Fund. A complimentary publication will accompany the exhibition.

Artist Bio

Donna Huanca (born 1980 in Chicago, IL; lives and works in Berlin, Germany) completed her education at the University of Houston; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine; and Städelschule, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She has completed several residencies, including at SmackMellon, Brooklyn; Access Gallery, Vancouver, Canada; and Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Huanca is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship; Art Matters Grant, New York; Francis Greenberg Award, Art OMI, New York; DeGolyer Grant, Dallas Museum of Art; and a 2016 Hirshhorn Artist Honoree. She has had solo exhibitions at the Marfa Ballroom; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; and Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria. Huanca has featured her work in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland; and Malmö Konsthalle, Sweden. Her work is held in the collections of the Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China; Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Performances

On May 5, 2022, composer, artist, and Huanca's long-term collaborator Lyra Pramuk performed inside the MAGMA SLIT universe, sharing their ideas on transcendence, meditation, and transformation. Sign up for the Henry's e-newsletter to get notified about upcoming performances.

Publication

CREDITS

Donna Huanca: MAGMA SLIT is organized by Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs. Lead sponsorship is provided by a gift from the Friday Foundation in honor of Richard E. Lang and Jane Lang Davis and a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Media sponsorship provided by The Stranger. Performances for Donna Huanca: MAGMA SLIT are supported by a grant from the Nesholm Family Foundation.