New York Magazine - USA (2022-01-03)

64 new york | january 3–16, 2022

The CULTURE PAGES

Afterlife

of an

Artifact

For artist Gala Porras-Kim,

museum collections

are more than inspiration.

They’re material.

By max pearl

precipitation for an arid landscape is on

view at Amant (315 Maujer St.) through March 17.

five years ago, the artist Gala Porras-Kim saw a

TV documentary about the excavation of a sacred

cenote at the Mayan city Chichén

Itzá. In the early 20th century, the

U.S. diplomat Edward H. Thomp-

son had dredged the pool for arti-

facts and took home a breathtaking

haul that the Mayans had sub-

merged there: ceramics, gold, jade,

obsidia n, wood, clothing, a nd pieces

of tree resin called copal. Sidestep-

ping laws prohibiting the remova l of

antiquities, he spirited them out

of Mexico and into the vaults of

Harvard’s Peabody Museum.

Born in Colombia and based in Los Angeles,

Porras-Kim makes work

about artifacts, the institu-

tions that house them, and,

increasingly, the spiritual lives

they may lead. The ones

Thompson took, for instance,

were intended as gifts for

the rain god Chaac. “There

are artifacts in museum

collections that may still be

performing their original

function,” she says. “Like, the

pillow you go to your afterlife

with was technically forever.

“The objects are
sourced from
photographs shot
from different
perspectives.
We mostly arranged
the objects according
to how they appear
in the catalogue, but
we also took some
liberties, such as
adding a shelf in
the middle where
we placed the
larger objects.”

“Depending on when

the objects were

restored, different

methodologies

were used. The

farthest-left pot—

somebody filled in

the fragments and

tried to match the

hues. The second

one

but th

to mat

The third one is just

bits that have been

stuck together

on a board.”

Gala Porras-Kim, 228 Offerings for the Rain at the Peabody Museum (2021).