Donna

Huanca, part of Throat Closure/Etheric Layer (Maenad Cymbals),

2016, mixed media installation including PVC drapes, oil stick, powdered
pigment, steel armatures, foam, artist's clothing, leather hides, sheet
latex, web organza, used body stockings, horse-tails, rubber, silicone
moulds; Diptych of photographic prints on canvas, pigment, oil stick,
paint

Donna Huanca (b. 1980 in Chicago, US) is an
American artist of Bolivian origins living and
working in New York. She has studied at the
Stdelschule in Frankfurt and the Skowhegan
School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Recent
exhibition venues include the Malm Konsthalle,
Moma PS1 Printshop (NY), Peres Projects (Berlin).

by Adriana Tranc

Donna Huanca's first solo show in the UK, commissioned by the Zabludowicz Collection in London, seems to be a
meticulous and graceful maturation of her preceding artistic explorations. The live performers' effortless body
paint and their 'non-costumes' made only of stockings and head accessories (septums, hairdos, Egyptian-like face
make-up), the sculptural installations constructed of layered textiles and other materials like the artist's clothing,
latex, organza, horse-tails, rubber, used body stockings, the sound interventions, the pictorial wide surfaces,
these all emulate from previous works, as can clearly be noticed by simply scrolling through Huancas web
portfolio.

The former Methodist Church, and drama school, now known as the Zabludowicz Collection venue, has been
visually and conceptually transformed in order to best suit the artist's intention that insinuates a ritual rather
than an exhibition. Once you have entered the space, strong vibrations and electronic sounds that originate from
a white deck bash you, placing you in a sort of transcendental mood. Then you clearly identify the smell of Palo
Santo, a shamanic wood burnt to clean negative energy. Then you see people half-dressed, or half-undressed,
painted all over in beautiful soothing colors, walking very slowly like in a hallucinatory trance. You can't really
identify genders; it looks like all bodies are the same, they just have different sizes. By this time, you can consider
yourself immersed in the experience, part of the ritual, as your senses are (almost) all in direct contact with the
surroundings. It becomes clear that there's an altar too in this sanctuary, placed right in the space's architectural
apse: the massive glass and metal structure that encapsulates performers delicately moving in its interior boxes.

Huanca is of Bolivian origin and, as she stated in an interview1, she used to travel every summer to Quillacollo for
the Fiesta de la Virgen de Urkupia, a Quechua traditional feast. This Andean native culture is a direct
descendant of the Incas, a people with deep roots in ceremonial magic and sacred practices. What the artist
manages to do is very captivatingly translate ancient rites into a contemporary visual language that we can all
relate to, independently of our own personal cultural inheritance. The pursuit of the link between body and
spirituality is common for the entire humanity. And Donna Huanca scrutinizes this very astutely by examining
the skin, the largest and one of the most important organs in your body, a shield that protects us from the
environment, but also an obstacle that hinders us from surpassing our limits. The seven art works exhibited
correspond to the skin's seven layers.

The exhibition Scar Cymbals runs at the Zabludowicz Collection in London from September 29 to December 18.

1 http://www.sleek-mag.com/2016/09/06/donna-huanca-art/