Discussion | Art and Stories from Southern Chile

In conjunction with the solo exhibition Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body, Sylvia Palacios Whitman will perform her recent work, Visit to See the Monkey and Other Childhood Stories. In this piece, Palacios Whitman utilizes drawings created from 1960 to 2019 to retell stories from her childhood in Southern Chile. 

Following the performance, the artist will be in conversation with Jay Sanders, Director of Artists’ Space. Also on view during the event will be the artist’s latest series of large-scale works on paper called Floor Drawings, on view for the first time. These pieces incorporate iconography from Palacios Whitman’s past work and are presented on the floor, allowing the viewer to engage them from above. Like Visit to See the Monkey, some drawings reference imagery and memories from the artist’s childhood. A reception will follow the event. 

About the Panelists
Sylvia Palacios Whitman (b. 1941) is a visual and performance artist who studied painting and sculpture at the Escuela de Bellas Artes at the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. After moving to New York City in 1961, Palacios Whitman began experimenting with movement and contemporary dance and became involved with the downtown avant-garde. In the early 1970s, she performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. In 1974, Palacios Whitman began directing and choreographing her own performances, which she staged at new, experimental art venues around New York City including the Kitchen, Artists’ Space, and Sonnabend Gallery. In her 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. From the 1980s onward, she began to focus on producing drawings, collages, and sculptural artworks made from paper, expanding on visual themes from her performances.

Jay Sanders is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Artists Space. Recent exhibitions include Attention Line, Jack Smith: Art Crust of Spiritual Oasis and Unholding. He was previously a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art where he organized Calder: Hypermobility (2017), Laura Poitras: Astra Noise (2016), Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama-Manhattan, 1970-1980 (2013), and the 2012 Whitney Biennial (with Elisabeth Sussman), along with the performance retrospectives Open Plan: Cecil Taylor (2016), DANCE NOISE: Don't Look Back (2015), and Takehisa Kosugi: Music Expanded (2015). He was gallery director of Greene Naftali from 2005-2010. Sanders has organized numerous exhibitions, concerts, film series, and events over the past two decades.