ICA Miami & Fondation Cartier Present Venezuelan Artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
Ahead of Miami Art Week, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), will open the first solo U.S. museum exhibition for Venezuelan artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe on November 19.
Venezuelan artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe. Courtesy Galería ABRA, Caracas. Photo/Eloísa Arias
A joint presentation with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the survey showcases more than 25 years of Hakihiiwe’s career, capturing his visual representations of the Amazonian forest, its wildlife, and Yanomami cultural traditions. The arrival of the exhibition in South Florida offers local audiences and the region’s expansive Venezuelan community a direct link to one of Latin America's most significant contemporary Indigenous voices.
ICA Miami is located at Miami Design District. 61 NE 41st St, Miami. Photo/ICA Miami
THE LANGUAGE OF THE FOREST
Co-curated by Gean Moreno, Director of the Art + Research Center at ICA Miami, and Michela Alessandrini, Curator at the Fondation Cartier, the exhibition brings together over 100 works. These include pieces from the Fondation Cartier collection alongside newly commissioned installations, murals, and film.
Hakihiiwe, born in 1971 in Sheroana, Venezuela, continues to live in the remote Poripori community along the upper Orinoco River. His practice draws directly from the environment around him, translating ancestral oral histories and ecological observation into drawings, prints, and paintings on handmade paper, as well as expansive site-specific works.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Puu motho shipe (Stinging Vines), 2023. Acrylic on paper, 23 5/8 x 31 1/2 in. (60 x 80 cm). Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain © Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
FROM SHAPONO TO SHAMANIC INITIATION
The exhibition layout is structured into four distinct chronological and thematic sections. The opening section, Building a Language, traces the artist's foundational paper works, such as Shapono, which established his visual language. The second section, Notational Systems and Encyclopedic Exercises, explores his taxonomic and indexical projects developed since the early 2010s. The third section, Landscapes, expands the physical scale of his work to larger tableaus and new materials. The final section, Shamanic Initiation, reflects Hakihiiwe's recent shamanic training through new installations, a site-specific mural, shamanic poles, and a film set to his own audio chanting.
Mexico City architect Mauricio Rocha and his studio, Taller de Arquitectura, designed the gallery space. Drawing architectural inspiration from the traditional Yanomami communal dwelling, or shapono, Rocha incorporates natural earth pigments, filtered light, and deliberate views of the surrounding landscape to frame Hakihiiwe’s works.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Hii Hi frare frare (Tree with Yellow Trunk), 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 64 3/16 x 66 1/8 in. (163 x 168 cm). Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain © Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
"Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe's work offers a glimpse into vast Indigenous knowledge systems through a visual language that is as meticulous and rich as the natural world and cultural traditions from which it emerges," said Alex Gartenfeld, Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director at ICA Miami. "At ICA Miami, we are dedicated to exhibiting work that reveals the complexity and breadth of artistic production around the world, creating a bridge to globally significant artistic practices that have not yet received sustained institutional recognition in the United States. It is especially meaningful to present this landmark exhibition in Miami, given the city's enduring connections to Latin America and its position as a vital cultural crossroads in the Americas."
Hakihiiwe's work frequently addresses the delicate nature of his home ecosystem and culture. "Everything you can see is beautiful, but it’s all at risk of disappearing, including my family, my community, the language we speak, and everything I know in the forest—animals, plants, rivers, even me," the artist noted in 2023 during the opening of Siamo Foresta in Milan.
A CLOSER LOOK: SHEROANAWE HAKIHIIWE
Miami Living chatted with Michela Alessandrini, Curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, to discuss Hakihiiwe's practice, its environmental resonance, and why Miami serves as the ideal setting for his U.S. debut.
Michela Alessandrini, Curator at the Fondation Cartier. Photo/Thibaut Voisin
Miami Living: What makes Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe's artistic language distinctive within contemporary art?
Michela Alessandrini: Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe's artistic language is rooted in his Yanomami heritage and deep connection to his cultural traditions. He lives in the remote Poripori community along the Orinoco River in Venezuela, where he has developed a distinctive visual language through drawings, paintings, and prints that reflect his cultural heritage, ancestral myths, and relationship with his surroundings. His work is simultaneously rooted in the Yanomami tradition and in the larger Venezuelan and Latin American artistic landscape, which he contributes to in a unique way.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s work continuously evolved between his native forest, the city of Caracas, and the world, ultimately contributing to the recognition of Indigenous practices on an international scale. Bridging local knowledge and a wider audience, the artist considers the whole as one: plants, animals, human beings, and spirits, coexisting.
Miami Living: What does his work contribute to today's conversation about ecology and the environment?
Michela Alessandrini: Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe's work reflects a deeply rooted relationship with the natural world, drawing on the forms of the Amazonian forest. His practice offers a perspective shaped by Yanomami knowledge and traditions, while highlighting the close relationship between culture, community, and the environment.
The artist is engaged in a reflection about the cultural and climate crisis affecting both the forest and the whole world, because ecosystems need to coexist in harmony and “everything is connected,” as he warns us. Exhibitions are tools to share this reflection, of course. They are intended as platforms to share aesthetic and spiritual phenomena of the forest, but also to highlight the threats they face. Representing the natural world in its vitality and the decay it endures, the artist’s work suggests ways of being connected to a given environment that are holistic, all-encompassing, and inclusive.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Shipari teshina (Stingray’s Sting), 2021. Monotype on mulberry paper, 29 15/16 x 56 11/16 in. (76 x 144 cm). Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain © Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
Miami Living: Can you tell us why you chose Miami as the presenting city for Hakihiiwe's work?
Michela Alessandrini: The choice to present Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s work in Miami is linked to a shared commitment of ICA Miami and Fondation Cartier to representing the significance of human relationships to the environment in their programs. Miami is a city that stands as a major center for contemporary art and its longstanding connections to Latin America in addition to being at the forefront of the effects of climate change.
In particular, we wanted to connect with the Venezuelan community living in this city and the vibrant cultural landscape it is part of. While Fondation Cartier has previously exhibited Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s work in a number of collective shows in Europe and has extensively collected it throughout the years, this is the artist's first solo U.S. show. We could not have hoped to be welcomed by a better institution, one so open to the city and the multiplicity of cultures it is shaped by.
This show builds on the partnership established with the presentation of the Colombian fiber artist Olga de Amaral’s retrospective, which premiered in Paris in 2024 at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain before traveling to ICA Miami in 2025.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Yaro shinaki wake wake (Red Parrot Feather), 2021. Monotype on mulberry paper, 29 15/16 x 56 11/16 in. (76 x 144 cm). © Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe. Image courtesy Galería ABRA, Caracas / María Teresa Hamon
BEYOND THE EXHIBITION
Miami Living: Can you please share more about the Fondation Cartier? Why was it established and what role has it sought to play in contemporary art?
Michela Alessandrini: The Fondation Cartier believes in the power of art to foster understanding and dialogue across cultures. Since its founding in 1984, its activities have promoted collaboration and exchange across geographies and artistic disciplines, through programming that resonates with society and contemporary issues. Our goal is to promote new paths for contemporary artistic production, providing a framework for inspiration and expression for cultural expressions worldwide.
In this sense, the Fondation Cartier has always looked beyond the boundaries of contemporary art. As an example of this, the collaboration with Yanomami artists has been going on for more than 20 years now - since the landmark exhibition Yanomami. The spirit of the forest (Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2003). We aim to invite audiences to consider humans and non-humans as partners within a vast shared world of living beings, fully aligning with the notion of togetherness that informs the work of Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe.