The Portable Universe / El Universo en tus Manos: Thought and Splendor of Indigenous Colombia

(Los Angeles, CA – March 24, 2022) 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.

The exhibition is co-curated by Diana Magaloni, Deputy Director and Dr. Virginia Fields Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas at LACMA, and Julia Burtenshaw, Assistant Curator, Art of the Ancient Americas at LACMA. The Museo del Oro, Banco de la República, Bogotá, and the Museum Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) are co-curating partners. The curatorial team has also been working in close collaboration with the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, who are supporting and engaged in the project, as part of a long-term initiative in fostering cross-cultural dialogue and knowledge exchange.