Cecilia Vicuña and visitors with Quipu Gut (installation at Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany), 2017. Mixed media, unspun dyed wool. Collection of Lehmann Maupin, New York, New York. Copyright Cecilia Vicuña. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.
Cecilia Vicuña and visitors with Quipu Gut (installation at Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany), 2017. Mixed media, unspun dyed wool. Collection of Lehmann Maupin, New York, New York. Copyright Cecilia Vicuña. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.
Living Quipu
9:00 pm–9:40 pm
Chilean-born, New York–based artist Cecilia Vicuña stages a participatory meditative performance in conjunction with the opening of her exhibition, “Cecilia Vicuña: Disappeared Quipu,” on view in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art. Living Quipu represents a rebirthing of the quipu—an ancient Andean mode of writing, record keeping, and remembering through an intricate system of knotted cords that was banned by the Spanish in colonial times. Throughout the performance, Vicuña weaves and wraps the audience in raw wool, poetry, and song, channeling the power of this lost language into a new vehicle for connection. For Vicuña, each person becomes a knot and vessel for memory in her “quipu for the future.”