The Portable Universe / El Universo en tus Manos: Thought and Splendor of Indigenous Colombia
House Model of Circular Dwelling, 200 BC–1300 AD, Calima, gold, 4 1/4 × 4 in. diameter (10.8 × 10.2 cm), Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston, Gift of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. (2001.1366), photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents The Portable Universe / El Universo en tus Manos: Thought and Splendor of Indigenous Colombia, a groundbreaking exhibition showcasing the diversity and materiality of ancient Colombian cultures. Comprising approximately 400 works, the exhibition reframes how we approach ancient Colombian art and invites visitors into a cultural dialogue that spans both space and time. With the European conquest, Indigenous cultures and knowledge, based on millennia of intellectual efforts, were disregarded as crude superstition. By drawing heavily on the involvement of contemporary Indigenous collaborators, The Portable Universe is designed to recognize some of that knowledge and to envelop the works with life, meaning, and relevance for today and the future.