january3–16, 2022 | newyork 65ARTWORK: © GALA PORRAS-KIM
Whathappenswhenan insti-
tutiontakesit andmovesit?
Can it stillf unc tionw ithinthe
museum?”Suchcollections
ar e invariablybuiltfromthe
spoils of colonization and
co nquest.Recently,therehas
beenincreasingpressureon
in stitutionstorestitutethese
lo otedobjects,andthough
Porras-Kimsaysherworkalignswiththispush,she
doesn’tthinkof it as activistart:“Manyof those
ef fortsareaboutpeoplenow.I’mdealingwithhow
th e ancientpastis represented,whichof courseis
al soall aboutcolonialism.”
In2019,Porras-Kimrequestedaccessto
Harvard’scollectionas partof a fellowshipshe
di dthere. Theresultwassevenmonumental,
photorealisticdrawingsof the
variousobjectscalled“Offerings
for the Rain at the Peabody
Museum.”Nowon viewin Porras-
Kim’ssoloshow“Precipitationfor
anAridLandscape”at Amant,an
ar ts center in East Williamsburg,
the six-foot-square drawings
depict shelves stocked with gold
discs, jade necklaces, and ceramic
vessels. The objects’ sensuous
detail—the delicate translucence ofthejade,hum-
ming with an electric current of greenandyellow—
clashes with the sterility of the whiteshelveson
which they’re arranged. These carpal-tunnel-
inducing images can take three monthseachto
complete, even with a team of two-to-fourassis-
tants to help with drawing and research.
Forreference,Porras-Kim
usedphotosanddescriptive
detailsfromthemuseum’s
database. Because of the
quirksof dataentry,the
sc alecanbe off,or an object
can repeat—ifthemuseum
photographed an object
twice,Porras-Kimrenderedit
twicetoo.“Theworkis not
only aboutpastinterventions
a nd thewayotherpeoplehave
chosento seethecataloguebutalsohowI as an art-
istamseeingit andfilteringit,”shesays.
Here,theartistwalksNew Yorkth roughhow she
madeherdrawing 22 8 Of fer ingsfortheRainat the
PeabodyMuseum.Despiteherheadymetacom-
mentarieson thefieldsof artand
ar chaeology,Porras-Kim’swork
tendstowardbeauty.“Myworkis
mainlytheresearchpart,”she
sa ys,“butI haveto thinkabout
theaudience.I knowthatif
I makesomesuper-research-y,
PDF-stylepiecethatdoesn’tlook
li keanything,thenmy momis
never going to bring her friends
over to see it.” ■“I’mnottryingto
drawtheobject
exactlyasis in terms
ofmatchingthe
color.Itdoesn’t have
tobea one-to-one
representation.
Otherwise, it would
be a photograph, and
I’m a human—these
objects are mediated
through my studio.”“I don’t have the
patience to look at
things closely unless
I’m making
a drawing—so for me,
it’s like a crutch to
slow down. Drawing
is like a slowed-down
learning process
because I’ve actually
memorized every
single work now
that I’ve drawn it.”“I have an assistant
who helps me draw.
For the jade necklace,
I came in from the left,
and he came in from
the right. My style on
the left is smoother,
and he was like, ‘Oh
my God, I messed
it up,’ but I told him
it was beautiful. He
saw it one way, and
I saw it another.”“I can only speculate
because I haven’t
seen the objects in
person, but it feels
like some are bigger
than they should be,
maybe because there
was a discrepancy
between inches and
centimeters. There’s
no way that bell is
that big—it must
be a typo in the
museum catalogue.”