Donna Huanca: Espejo Quemada

An exploration of decolonial, feminist and personal themes in the West Texas landscape through Huanca’s painting and sculpture

The latest volume from Chicago-born, Berlin-based multimedia artist Donna Huanca (born 1980) engages with the landscape of West Texas, while also drawing on visual, cultural and mythological cues informed by feminism, decolonialism and the artist’s personal histories. Documenting the exhibition of the same name at Ballroom Marfa (the title of which translates to “burnt mirror”), the bilingual English and Spanish catalog is an exploration of Huanca’s first memories of Marfa, Texas.
Created during the pandemic, Espejo Quemada moves away from Huanca’s live public performance work and focuses on the performative presence inherent in her sculptures and paintings, including the use of mirrors. With essays from Ballroom Marfa curator Daisy Nam, Whitney Museum of Art associate curator Marcela Guerrero and poet Raquel Gutiérrez, alongside the transcription of a walkthrough by poet and cultural critic Roberto Tejada, Espejo Quemada reminds us that the sentient body is a potent source and repository of memory, intuitive knowledge, imagination and desire.