Noé Martínez: The Body Remembers

Gannit Ankori

For his first solo exhibition in New England, Indigenous Mexican artist Noé Martínez (b. 1986 Michoacán, Mexico) addresses his family’s Huastecan heritage within the context of Mexico’s repressive colonial histories, in order to resurrect, mourn, and memorialize his indigenous culture. Supported by ethnographic practices and archival research, Martínez explores interconnected strata of art, body, history, and living memory.

Martínez attempts to locate traces of his ancestors’ lives within his own body, transforming art into both ritual and memorial. The Body Remembers is a multi-media installation consisting of life-size, collaged drawings of bodies that wrap the gallery's walls, embracing a circle of clay figurative vessels fashioned in the style of pre-Hispanic art. The exhibition also includes a large-scale video projection of a ceremonial dance. Utilizing body, sound, and movement, Martínez invokes his Huastecan ancestors, their histories, and traumas. The Body Remembers serves as an act of shamanistic healing for past and present wounds.

Noé Martinez: The Body Remembers is curated by Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum and Professor of Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University, with Guest Curator Circe Henestrosa, Head of the School of Fashion, LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore.

This exhibition is supported by Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award Fund, with additional funding from the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston and PATRON.

Special thanks to media partners El Planeta and WBUR.