In collaboration with Princeton University’s Brazil LAB and Department of Anthropology, the Princeton University Art Museum presents the work of Denilson Baniwa (Baniwa, born 1984, Amazonas, Brazil). Working in various media including drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance, Baniwa grapples with legacies of colonialism in the Americas and highlights Indigenous knowledge and resistance. His work addresses themes ranging from early Indigenous encounters with Europeans to ongoing environmental destruction and cultural erasure. Baniwa often draws on historical imagery from European sources in order to critique colonial fantasies while incorporating references to pop culture and technology that reflect contemporary Indigenous experience. The exhibition will include work that Baniwa made in response to objects that he examined in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and Princeton University Library Special Collections.
Curated by Jun Nakamura, assistant curator of prints and drawings; Miqueias Mugge, associate research scholar, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies; and Carlos Fausto, professor of anthropology, Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, and Princeton Global Scholar.
