Peruvian painter Santiago Yahuarcani brings Amazon memory to Mexico City's Chopo
Peruvian painter Santiago Yahuarcani brings 40 Amazonian works to Mexico City's Chopo in his first show there, with paintings held by MoMA and the Guggenheim.
The Museo Universitario del Chopo opens "El principio del conocimiento" ("The Beginning of Knowledge") on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, the first exhibition in Mexico devoted to the Peruvian painter and Indigenous leader Santiago Yahuarcani. The show brings together nearly 40 works made between 2004 and 2025.
El Universal reported on Oct. 22 that Yahuarcani, born in Pucaurquillo, Peru, in 1960, has paintings in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The same article traces his grandfather, Gregorio López, a member of the Áimeni (White Heron) clan who survived the Putumayo genocide between 1879 and 1912, when more than 30,000 people were killed or enslaved during rubber extraction in the Amazon.
The exhibition, Excélsior reported on Oct. 23, is curated by Miguel A. López. It arrives after Yahuarcani's appearance at the 2024 Venice Biennale, where he presented "Shimimbro," one of the paintings now on view in Mexico City. The Chopo belongs to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and the exhibition offers viewers in Mexico City, including Mexican American visitors who follow art across the border, a first full reading of a body of work already held by museums in New York.
Most of the paintings use pigments drawn from turmeric, leaves and lianas, applied to llanchama, a bark cloth taken from the ojé tree. Yahuarcani said in the Excélsior report that the bark is beaten with the back of a machete, washed, wrung out and dried in the sun, a process that takes at least two days before it becomes cloth. He said he learned the technique by watching his grandfather and now teaches it to his grandchildren, his son-in-law and his daughters, according to El Universal. The show also includes sculptures and masks by his wife, Nereyda López, and paintings by his son, Rember Yahuarcani. Among the recent works are "Grito de 2020" and "Malestar de los abuelos por la fibra óptica en la Amazonía," which address the climate crisis in the rainforest, and Yahuarcani told Excélsior that the arrival of fiber-optic cable brings a sense of unease.
The opening on Saturday, Oct. 24, includes a conversation with the artist at noon. The exhibition remains on view through March 28, 2027, with nearly 40 works that trace two decades of painting about the Amazon and its communities.
Sources: Santiago Yahuarcani, el líder indígena que con su arte conquistó Venecia y ahora el Museo del Chopo · Santiago Yahuarcani lleva la memoria indígena de la Amazonia al Museo del Chopo
This story was written with the help of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.
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