Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body

Americas Society will present Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body the first solo exhibition and career survey of the Chilean artist in New York. Sylvia Palacios Whitman (b. Osorno, Chile, 1941) is a visual and performance artist, who has been experimenting with movement and contemporary dance since her moving to New York in the early 1960s. She became an integral figure of the experimental downtown arts scene in 1970s in New York, having collaborated with many American and international artists. In her solo and group performances, Palacios Whitman developed her own choreographic language, which privileged the participation of untrained performers, embraced humor and unexpected elements, and incorporated found objects and ephemeral props. Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body will revisit these landmark performances with never-before-seen material from the artist’s archives alongside sketches, video and photographic documentation, and new large scale works on paper. Central to the presentation will be the restaging of Palacios Whitman’s key historical works.

To accompany the show, we will present a series of public programs and publish a pocketbook.

The exhibition is co-curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin and Rachel Remick

View gallery and visitors information here.

Image credit: Contact sheet of Change of Line (performance) from Clearview (one place at a time) (performance event), November 19-21, 1976. Sylvia Palacios Whitman Archive, Photo: Babette Mangolte