The Hispanic Society Museum & Library (HSM&L) is pleased to present Pororoca, an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by leading Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão. This is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in New York and her third solo museum exhibition in the United States. The new works from the exhibition stem from Varejão’s participation in the inaugural Bienal das Amazônias (2023), marking two decades since she first began conducting research with the Yanomami people in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. In Pororoca, Varejão reflects on the Amazonian rainforest as a great nexus for ecology, art, and culture by presenting a new iteration of her celebrated three-dimensional Plate series which blurs the line between painting and sculpture. These free-standing fiberglass tondos, hand-painted with oil, simulate historic palissy ceramic dishware. In these richly detailed textural works, operatic scenes of Amazonian flora and fauna collide with the complex historic patterns of Iberian and Latin American ceramics from the Hispanic Society’s vast collection. Varejão’s practice aligns with the Hispanic Society’s mission to foster meaningful dialogues between historical and contemporary art. Her work interweaves time and culture to reveal unexpected crossroads between historic artisanal objects, raising provocative questions about resilience, ecofeminism, and the lives of forms in art. The exhibition, a collaboration with Gagosian, will bring heightened visibility to the Hispanic Society’s efforts to make culturally topical, contemporary art accessible to the New York City public.