5. Our North Is the South at Gomide & Co., São Paulo, Brazil
A compact yet prodigiously researched and stunningly produced show, Our North Is the South, at Gomide & Co. in São Paulo, paired Amerindian artifacts dating back to 200 AD, mostly from Pre-Colombian Huari Culture, with Latin American modern and contemporary art to underscore the latter’s indebtedness to Indigenous traditions. Curated by Tiago Mesquita, with catalogue texts by Mesquita and Paul Hughes, the show featured Indigenous textiles alongside modernists such as Joaquín Torres Garcia, Mira Schendel, Rubem Valentim, and Lygia Clark, who renewed modernism by reinventing artisanal materials and, at times, directly abstracting Amerindian forms, echoing their forceful geometry, graphic line, and rhythmic sensibility. Works by contemporary artists, e.g. Gabriel Orozco, Magdalena Jitrik, Pedro Reyes and Marioly Rosas Figueroa, revealed the continuing evolution of this confluence. —Ela Bittencourt