La Chola Poblete: Andean Pop | Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand
Exhibitions
La Chola Poblete (Guaymallén, Argentina, 1989) initially adopted the name Chola as an alter ego for performances and later as her identity. The term chola refers to women of indigenous descent and originated as a racial slur in Peru and Bolivia, where the artist's ancestors come from. Poblete uses this narrative to deconstruct stereotypes produced about her community and history, working with painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, video, and performance. Her works frequently appropriate the works of other artists, mixing patterns and characters that are sometimes reproduced on the exhibition walls, as is the case here.
Her drawings function as mental maps that articulate a wide range of references and techniques on paper. Her sculptures made with bread have a strong sensory appeal and evoke the symbolic and economic dimensions of this food. Her photographs suggest fictions that place the artist as a pop singer or as a mythological figure.
La Chola Poblete: Andean Pop is the artist's first solo exhibition in Brazil. The title comes from a manifesto in which she criticizes the art system's expectations regarding racialized trans bodies. The exhibition brings together 31 works, including 14 watercolors from the iconic Vírgenes cholas series , exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Her work reflects on Argentine history, addressing issues such as politics, Christian heritage, and indigenous forms of resistance to colonization. The works discuss the representation of racialized and LGBTQIA+ people, while the diversity of themes and the fluidity of forms elaborated by the artist affirm her desire for freedom for these groups.
La Chola Poblete: Andean Pop is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, and Leandro Muniz, assistant curator, MASP.
The exhibition is part of the year dedicated to Latin American Histories , which includes monographic exhibitions by Carolina Caycedo, Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA), Damián Ortega, Jesús Soto, Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla, Pablo Delano, Rosa Elena Curruchich, Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Santiago Yahuarcani and Sol Calero, in addition to the collective exhibition Latin American Histories, as well as exhibitions in the Video Room by Clara Ianni, Claudia Martínez Garay, Edgar Calel, Oscar Muñoz and Regina José Galindo.