Ancient Weaving From the Argentine Chaco Lands in São Paulo

Culture

Some of the most striking art in São Paulo this season comes not from a famous studio but from a remote corner of northern Argentina. A show of Wichí textile art has arrived at MASP.

The work is by Claudia Alarcón and a weaving collective called Silät, shown at MASP. They are Indigenous women of the Wichí people, based in Salta Province in Argentina’s dry Chaco region.

The Wichí are one of several Indigenous groups living in the Gran Chaco, a vast lowland plain that stretches across northern Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and a sliver of Brazil. The region is hot, sparsely populated and far from the urban centres where most Latin American art institutions are based.

The collective is young but the craft is old. Silät formed only in 2023, yet its members draw on weaving techniques passed down through generations of their community.

The material itself is local. The textiles are made from chaguar, a tough plant fibre native to the artists’ homeland, harvested and spun by hand.

Chaguar comes from a bromeliad plant that grows wild in the Chaco scrubland. Extracting usable fibre from it involves stripping the leaves, soaking them, beating them to separate the threads, then drying and twisting them into yarn strong enough to weave.

Why this textile art matters

The show marks a shift in status. Work once labelled craft is being presented as contemporary art in one of Latin America’s most important museums, on its own terms.

MASP is shorthand for the São Paulo Museum of Art, a landmark institution known for its bold architecture and its collection of European and Brazilian modernism. Hosting Indigenous textile work in this setting signals a broadening of what counts as art worthy of a major museum.

For the Wichí, weaving is more than decoration. It is bound up with memory, myth and place, a living language the women use to tell their own history and assert their identity.

The exhibition is generous in scope. It gathers around thirty works, several of them never exhibited before, giving a full sense of the collective’s range.

The pieces recreate traditional patterns. Many rework the designs and techniques used to make the yica, a woven bag central to daily life in the community.

The yica is a practical object, used for carrying food, tools and other essentials. But its patterns also encode cultural knowledge, with each design carrying meaning passed from mother to daughter.

What the textile art tells a visitor

There is a political charge to it. By reasserting the role of women as keepers of this knowledge, the artists turn weaving into a quiet manifesto about culture and survival.

It also broadens the regional story. Alarcón has shown at the Venice Biennale, a sign that Indigenous artists from South America are increasingly central to the global art conversation.

The Venice Biennale is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious art exhibitions, held every two years in Italy. Participation there is often seen as a marker of international recognition.

For a foreign visitor, it is a rare window. Few travellers reach the Argentine Chaco, so seeing its art in São Paulo is a chance to meet a culture most outsiders never encounter.

The setting adds contrast. Hanging ancient plant-fibre weavings inside a bold modernist museum sharpens the dialogue between deep tradition and the contemporary art world.

How to see it

The location is central and easy. MASP sits on Avenida Paulista, close to the metro and to São Paulo’s main cluster of cafés, parks and galleries.

The budget tip is the same as ever. Entry is free every Tuesday, and the Silät show can be paired with the museum’s other current exhibitions in a single visit.

It is worth slowing down in front of the work. Chaguar weaving is painstaking, from stripping and drying the fibre to knotting it by hand, and the labour behind each piece rewards a patient look.

The show also sits within a wider moment. Museums across the region are giving Indigenous artists the space and status long reserved for European-trained painters, and this exhibition is part of that overdue shift.

The honest takeaway is that it repays curiosity. You do not need to know the Wichí to be moved by the colour and pattern, and a short wall text is enough to unlock the deeper story.

What remains to be seen is whether this kind of recognition translates into lasting support for Indigenous artists in their home communities, or whether it remains confined to the museum circuit. The answer will depend on choices made by institutions, collectors and governments in the years ahead.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Claudia Alarcón textile art show?

It is an exhibition of textile art at MASP in São Paulo by Claudia Alarcón and the Silät collective, Wichí women from Salta Province in northern Argentina. It gathers around thirty works woven from chaguar plant fibre, several shown for the first time.

Who are the Silät collective?

Silät is a weaving collective of Wichí women formed in 2023 in northern Argentina. They use techniques passed down through their community to create textiles that carry memory, mythology and identity.

Where and when can I see it?

The show is at MASP on Avenida Paulista in central São Paulo, close to the metro. Entry to the museum is free every Tuesday, and the exhibition can be combined with its other current shows.