A PROJECT THAT “ACTIVATES THE PAST AS POSSIBILITY” AT PINTA LIMA
Peruvian artist Yerko Zlatar, alongside Mariana Otero, director of Puna gallery (Peru), explores the contemporaneity of traditional crafts in the NEXT Section of the fair. The collaborative duo showcases unique pieces rooted in traditional practices such as weaving, ceramics, and basketry, understood as living languages that enable the creation of new works of art.
The NEXT Section of Pinta Lima 2025—the only contemporary art fair in Peru—focuses on practices that revisit the role of crafts within contemporary artistic expressions, drawing from ways of making and knowing that lie outside conventional techniques. Curated by Emiliano Valdés, this platform proposes a polyphony of approaches to understanding art not only as a means of representation but also as a way of conceiving and constructing the world. This is precisely what Puna gallery and Zlatar bring to the table.
Working in collaboration with Andrea Espinoza’s ceramic studio Manufactura, master weaver Elvia Paucar, and the Goicochea family’s basketry workshop, they have created a body of work that blurs the boundaries between art and design. “In this series, textile patterns reinterpret pre-Columbian architectural structures; basketry breaks away from utilitarian function to reimagine ritual objects made solely from woven reed; and pre-Columbian ceramic forms such as stirrup-spout vessels are transformed into contemporary sculptures,” the artist told Arte al Día.
Otero, from the perspective of design and visual direction, and Zlatar, through sculptural form, spatial design, and symbolic research, have approached a project centered on “the idea of activating the past as possibility.” The proposal reminds us of how Indigenous cultures structured their relationship with the environment, time, and the cosmos—and how these structures—technologies in themselves—can engage in dialogue with our present-day modes of interaction, often mediated by technology.
Within the context of a fair like Pinta, and in a section dedicated to emerging artists, the project invites us to see traditional crafts from a different perspective: “not as frozen legacies, nor as purely artisanal expressions, but as languages with the power to generate contemporary art rooted in identity and critical thought,” Zlatar affirmed.
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Mariana Otero y Yerko Zlatar (Puna Estudio)
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Yerko Zlatar. Bloques. Acrílico sobre lino, 100 x 100 cm. (Puna Estudio)
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Mariana Otero y Yerko Zlatar. Vaso Pie. Cerámica, 20 x 20 x 15. (Puna Estudio)
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Yerko Zlatar. Bloque 4. Acrílico sobre lino, 50 x 50 cm. (Puna Estudio)
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Mariana Otero y Yerko Zlatar. Culto 4. Lana de oveja tejida en telar a pedal, 150 x 100 cm. (Puna Estudio)
The proposal seeks to dissolve hierarchies within a Peruvian context where rigid boundaries between art, design, and craft still persist. The creative duo presents “works that connect timeframes, materials, and sensibilities through a collaborative, open, and contemporary practice.”
The 12th edition of Pinta Lima will take place from April 24 to 27, 2025, at Casa Prado, Lima (Peru).
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