Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body

Sylvia Palacios Whitman arrived in the United States as a young artist in the early 1960s. She first became known working in Manhattan's downtown art scene with choreographers such as Trisha Brown before moving on to develop her work. A pioneer of performance art, Palacios Whitman helped chart a new way for artists at the time to challenge the art scene, going beyond objects and canvas and integrating movement and the body into their creative expression. 

In this video, the Chilean artist explains her process while Aimé Iglesias Lukin and Rachel Remick, the curators of her first solo exhibition Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body, talk about how the artist's performances are rooted in her daily practice of drawing. Art at Americas Society presents never-seen-before sketches and drawings connecting famous Palacios Whitman performances in a retrospective of her career. Highlighting the importance of Palacios Whitman as an influencer of contemporary art today, Remick says that the freedom to create across boundaries seen in art today was paved by "artists from the 1970s, particularly a lot of female artists that were creating in the space."

• Visit the Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body exhibition and access the pocketbook. 
• Read why The New York Times calls the exhibition "unforgettable."
• Follow the conversation on Instagram: @americassociety.visualarts
• Subscribe to Americas Society's Visual Arts YouTube to watch events on the echibition and other performances.