黑料不打烊

James Cohan is pleased to present the first New York solo exhibition of Claudia Alarc贸n & Sil盲t, a collective of artists from the Wich铆 communities of northern Salta, Argentina, on view at the gallery鈥檚 52 Walker space from April 11 through May 10, 2025. The exhibition features new textile works exploring celestial themes. James Cohan will host an exhibition walkthrough and talk with curator Andrei Fern谩ndez on Friday, April 11, at 5 PM, followed by an opening reception from 6-8 PM. 

Claudia Alarc贸n (b. 1989, Argentina) is an Indigenous textile artist from the La Puntana community of Wich铆 people of northern Salta. Alongside her individual practice, she leads the Sil盲t collective, an organization of one hundred women weavers of different generations from Wich铆 communities in the Alto la Sierra and La Puntana region.

Wich铆 society is clan-based and matrilocal. Weaving with hand-spun vegetal fibers from the local chaguar plant has been a communal, female-led activity for centuries, and is fundamental to the visual culture, narrative history and economics of the Wich铆 people. The centrality of weaving to the Wich铆 communities is articulated in a mythological tale in which women, living in the sky as stars, would travel down to earth on woven chaguar ropes to dine on the fish caught by fishermen. Upon discovering this, the men employed the help of birds to snap the ropes and the women were trapped on earth for evermore but continued to weave and pass the knowledge from the world above onto their daughters. This parable suggests a passage from the naivety and freedom of childhood to the societal responsibilities of adulthood; girls are taught to spin chaguar and weave functional objects from the age of 12, their creations a way to provide financially as well as to sustain ancestral cultural practices. In another sense, learning to weave presents a further awakening, an entryway into a collective conversation between the women of the Wich铆 communities. The textiles, formed of geometric motifs drawn from the surrounding environment, are a method of communicating unspoken thoughts within a culture that highly values forms of non-verbal expression, and the messages found within dreams and subconscious intuition. 

The Sil盲t collective emerged from the Tha帽铆/Viene del monte organization, a wider public project aimed at reviving ancestral textile traditions across the Salta region. Coordinated by Alarc贸n and working closely with curator Andrei Fern谩ndez since 2015, Sil盲t explores the possibilities of artmaking within and beyond these traditions. The collective have evolved established techniques into new forms, producing large-scale images that exploit the textural intricacies and earthy colours of chaguar yarn and natural dyes. In coordinating the production of the Sil盲t collective and leading experimentations in material and subject matter within their practice, Alarc贸n supports creativity, independence and self-sustaining practices, and provides a means for women across generations to transmit a contemporary indigenous culture into the webs of international art dialogues, beyond ethnographic readings.

This exhibition presents Alarc贸n and Sil盲t鈥檚 contribution to the rich tradition of South American geometric abstraction and highlights the ongoing significance of Wich铆 artworks to global modernism. Wich铆 artworks were a notable inspiration for Anni and Josef Albers, who traveled through Argentina in the 1930s and 40s鈥揂nni Albers鈥� personal collection of textiles from the region directly show the influence of these spatial principles and weaving techniques on her own practice.