MASP's 'Histórias Indígenas' Showcases 175 Artists from Seven Nations

The exhibition 'Histórias Indígenas' at MASP in São Paulo presents a significant survey of artistic production by Indigenous peoples from seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Norway. Spanning from 200 B.C. to the present day, the show features 175 artists whose works are organized into eight thematic cores, reaffirming the power of Indigenous cosmologies. The exhibition confronts contemporary debates about identity, highlighting artists who maintain constant production, with some already in museum collections or galleries. It includes powerful narratives about the absorption of millennial teachings by colonizers and stories of cultural erasure caused by racism and violence. A notable opening piece is a 1988 video by Brazilian Indigenous leader Airton Krenak, filmed during the Constituent Assembly in Brasília. The Brazilian segment is curated by Edson Kayapó, Kássia Borges Karajá, and Renata Tupinambá. Other sections feature curators like Abraham Cruzvillegas for Mexico, who explores the plural and unstable concept of identity, and Bruce Johnson-Mclean for Australia, who discusses the Western Desert region. The exhibition runs until an unspecified date.