NEW YORK, NY.- The Hispanic Society Museum & Library is presenting Adriana Varejão: Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics, an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by leading Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão. Marking the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in New York and her third in the United States, the show features new paintings from Varejão’s acclaimed Plate series and a site-specific outdoor sculptural intervention.
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The new works stem from Varejão’s participation in the inaugural Bienal das Amazônias (2023), marking two decades since the artist began conducting research with the Yanomami people in the Amazon basin. The exhibition premiers the latest additions to her celebrated Plate series. Inspired by the richly textural plates of Bernard Palissy, the 16th-century French potter, and Bordalo Pinheiro, the 19th-century Portuguese ceramicist, Varejão’s plates reveal surreal and sensual depictions of nature, femininity, and rebirth on large fiberglass tondos with protruding three-dimensional elements hand- sculpted by the artist and painted in oil. While her previous plates delved into the ocean’s depths, these new works shift her focus to the Amazonian rainforest, reflecting on its role as a vital nexus of ecology, art, and culture.
On the front of each plate, exuberant imagery of Amazonian flora and fauna—including mucura (Amazonian opossum), guaraná (an Amazonian fruit), botos (pink river dolphins), mata mata (ancient river turtle), and urutau (night bird, or mother of the moon)—highlight the seductive intricacies of nature. On the reverse, Varejão simulates designs of historic ceramics from the Hispanic Society’s collection and beyond, including Spanish Valenciana, Ottoman Iznik, Ming Dynasty Hongzhi porcelain, and pre-Columbian Amazonian Marajoara pottery. This juxtaposition between natural and man-made patterns encapsulates the tension between organic vitality and humanity’s desire to immortalize, offering an interplay between the moving, breathing organisms of the Amazon and the crafted, enduring patterns of human history.
Drawing references from the 17th-century scientific drawings of explorer Friar Cristóvão de Lisboa, Varejão reflects on humanity’s relationship with nature—its admiration and desire to control it. These early colonial depictions, which sought to document the wonders of the Amazon, now foreshadow its destruction. The Amazonian species depicted in Varejão’s plates, many now endangered, embody a Baroque fusion of opposites, at once powerful and vulnerable. Creatures such as vibrantly patterned poisonous frogs exemplify this duality, combining vivid beauty with inherent toxicity, attraction with repulsion, and life with death. This harmony of extremes, central to the Baroque sensibility, has always permeated Varejão’s work.
In the HSM&L’s main gallery, a Baroque revival arcade adorned by grand terracotta- colored archways will frame Varejão’s elaborate plates. As a response to the gallery’s distinctive architecture, the artist will install her paintings as free-standing sculptures, inviting visitors to move around them and appreciate their three-dimensionality and the contrasts between their two sides. The exhibition’s title, Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics, is both a tribute to the natural and cultural vitality of Brazil and an homage to one of its distinguished artists, Maria Martins, who famously declared, “Don’t forget, I come from the Tropics.” This embrace of tropical and Baroque aesthetics celebrates the vibrancy of the Latin American world.
Expanding the dialogue between nature and humanity, Varejão’s monumental outdoor sculptural intervention in front of the museum activates the institution's 1927 equestrian statue of El Cid by Anna Hyatt Huntington. In this site-specific work, a vibrantly painted fiberglass sucuri (Amazonian anaconda) coils around the bronze warrior, confronting the statue’s symbolism of imperialism, masculinity, and man’s domination of nature. The equestrian figure, a man steering a horse, demonstrates control over a domesticated animal, while the snake’s intervention introduces an unexpected collision between the tamed and the wild. Surrounded by inscribed names of historic conquistadores, the snake disrupts the colonial narrative and creates a confrontation between mankind and Mother Nature. By referencing Maria Martins in the exhibition’s title—renowned for her serpent- like sculptures—Varejão also bridges the legacies of Martins and Huntington, two pioneering female sculptors from opposite hemispheres.
The serpent’s embrace in both the outdoor sculptural intervention and the Plate paintings invites reflection on the forces at play in the Amazon’s plight, where nature is both endangered and enduring. Across cultures, the serpent symbolizes the feminine divine, transformation, and resilience. Many of the other creatures depicted in the plates, such as the mucura (Amazonian opossum), also carry meanings tied to femininity and rebirth in Yanomami mythology, where women and nature are viewed as sources of knowledge and renewal. In stark contrast, the relentless exploitation of nature’s resources for profit, driven by male political leaders and corporate magnates, underscores the gendered power dynamics of the climate crisis. Through this lens, Varejão’s work draws attention to histories at the margins, where women and nature are enduring sources of wisdom and transformation.
In addition to producing new works, Varejão has curated a selection of historic ceramic plates from the HSM&L’s collection to display alongside her Plate series. By placing these ceramics in conversation with her monumental paintings, she raises provocative questions about the hierarchies of aesthetics. Historically, ceramics have been relegated to “craft” or “decorative arts,” secondary to painting and sculpture. Varejão challenges these assumptions, creating sculptural paintings inspired by ceramics from the past, which begs the question: Why are certain forms of artistry considered artisanal rather than fine art—and who determines these distinctions? Her works blur these boundaries, demonstrating how ceramics, with their evolutive essence and origins in every culture, can engage with contemporary issues and enrich our understanding of art.
"We are thrilled to present the first institutional exhibition in New York by Adriana Varejão, one of the most significant artists from Latin America, and beyond”, says Guillaume Kientz, Director of The Hispanic Society Museum & Library. “Varejão’s work bridges time, culture, and geography in ways that resonate deeply with the Hispanic Society’s mission to celebrate the rich diversity of the Portuguese and Spanish speaking world. Her ability to intertwine historical narratives with contemporary sensibilities makes her a natural fit for our institution, which is contemporarily working on intensifying its ties with and outreach to lusophone communities. This exhibition marks a historic moment for us, as we present an artist whose practice redefines the boundaries of tradition. We expect her intervention to inspire modern audiences, revive interests for our unique, historical collection of ceramics, and offer new perspectives about both the past and the present.”
Through her sculptural paintings and painterly sculptures, Varejão probes the interconnectedness of art and craft, past and present, and humanity and nature. Organized in collaboration with Gagosian, the exhibition exemplifies the HSM&L’s commitment to fostering meaningful dialogues between historical and contemporary art. It is the second in a series at the HSM&L titled “A Collection in Question”, which engages artists who draw inspiration from the museum’s historic collection. As one of only a few free museums in New York City, the Hispanic Society furthers this mission by ensuring these conversations are accessible to all.
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