Donna Huanca’s OBSIDIAN LADDER triggers the senses through painting, sculpture, sound, scent, and performance. This new topography, which is strikingly different from the rest of the building, transports visitors to another world—a femme realm of reconciliation, creation and trust.
This gesture fractures the museum’s site as a former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple that was built by and for men. Every Saturday, painted femme models inhabit Huanca’s environment. Their movements through the space are self-determined, not bound to any direction from Huanca. She says,“These individuals are essential to the empowering process of reclaiming this space. My work has always been a poetic gesture commenting on societal imbalances and injustices. As I have had more opportunities to exhibit publicly, in different contexts globally, my work has evolved to directly confront patriarchal realities, power dynamics, and hierarchies of contemporary life.” Huanca’s use of natural materials, such as raw pigments, oils, turmeric, sand, and clay, is essential to her developing an other-worldly environment. In her skin paintings—a term that refers to both the painted live models and the hanging canvases—she layers these materials with fragments of paint, latex, and other skin-like substances. This material link between the works, including the painted humans that navigate her sculptural landscapes, creates a tactile ecosystem. In its willingness to engage femininity intuitively, the work stands as a challenge to the exhibitionism and objectification that pervade contemporary American life.
OBSIDIAN LADDER invites us to connect to a powerful feminine essence that is inherent to nature and creation. Curated by Olivia Marciano.
Performances
Performances are scheduled from 11am to 5pm every Saturday. The models have complete agency over their bodies, environment, and time. Visitors may or may not encounter them during their visit. During performances, photography is not permitted inside the Theater Gallery. Photographs may be taken using cell phones, but not cameras, from the Mezzanine Level balcony.
Donna Huanca works with a core group of models with whom she has collaborated over the years, as well as a group of local models who extend and amplify her practice in the Los Angeles community.
MAF and the artist would like to thank them for their performance and participation in OBSIDIAN LADDER: Asphodèle, Genevieve Belleveau, Parisjoy Jennings, Darius Khonsary, Vi Payaboon, Lyra Pramuk, Davia Spain, Kim Thompson.
Public Programs
In addition to the performances every Saturday, MAF presents a series of public programs highlighting issues related to the feminine today and disrupting the male gaze.
Dec 1, 2019, 5:00 PM
