The first solo U.S. museum exhibition by artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (b. 1971, Sheroana, Venezuela) is a joint presentation between ICA Miami and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, composing more than 100 works, including pieces from the Fondation Cartier’s collection as well as new commissions across a variety of media, to reveal the artist’s distinct pictorial lexicon and relationship with the natural world.
Hakihiiwe is among the most important Venezuelan artists working today on an international scale. A member of the Yanomami people, one of the largest indigenous groups living in Amazonia, Hakihiiwe was raised and still lives in the remote Poripori community along the banks of the upper Orinoco River. He draws inspiration from the vestiges and forms of the flora and fauna found in the forest where he resides. Through his practice, Hakihiiwe builds new visual languages to record his cultural heritage, ancestral myths, and ties to the environment. Best known for his drawings, paintings, and prints on handmade paper, the Miami exhibition highlights the artist’s continued material investigations, including animation, murals, and site-specific installations.
The exhibition tracks the evolution of Hakihiiwe’s oeuvre from his foundational works on paper to his latest explorations across media through four distinct sections. The first section, Building a Language, follows the artist’s earliest efforts to develop and refine his approach for visually transmitting the Yanomami cultural experience, including his seminal work, Shapono. The following section, Notational Systems and Encyclopedic Exercises expounds on Hakihiiwe’s taxonomic impulses, beginning with the indexical systems he began to develop in the early 2010s. The third section, Landscapes, sees the artist widening both the lens and form of his compositions to include larger tableaus and new materials. The final section, Shamanic Initiation, examines the effects of the artist’s recent shamanic training, including the power of dreams and images that bridge the visible and invisible worlds. Shamanic Initiation showcases Hakihiiwe’s latest works, including a new film soundtracked by the artist’s chanting, a site-specific mural, and a site-specific installation featuring a set of shamanic poles.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe is the first exhibition co-curated and jointly produced by ICA Miami and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. It 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. The exhibition is co-curated by Gean Moreno, Director of the Art + Research Center at ICA Miami, and Michela Alessandrini, Curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
The exhibition is designed by the renowned Mexico City-based architect Mauricio Rocha, and his studio Taller de Arquitectura. Inspired by the atmospheric qualities of the traditional Yanomami housing (shapono), Rocha’s architectural vision transforms filtered light, natural earth pigments, and framed views of the surrounding landscape into a contemplative spatial experience, inviting a slow encounter with Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s visual language and its profound connection to the forest.
Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (b. 1971, Sheroana, Venezuela) is a leading Venezuelan artist and a member of the indigenous Yanomami community. This year, his work was showcased at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City in Wayamou: Common Tongues, Laura Anderson Barbata and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (2026), as well as at Art of the Americas Society in Amazonia Açu (2026), in New York City. Other recent group shows that the artist has participated in include: Exposition Générale, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France (2025); Siamo Foresta, Triennale Milano, Italy, presented by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (2023); Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond, MoMA, New York, USA (2023); The Yanomami Struggle, The Shed, New York, USA, presented by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (2023); Kathmandu Triennale 2077, Kathmandu, Nepal (2022); XXIII Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2022) and Les Vivants (Living Worlds), Tripostal, Lille, France, presented by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (2022). He was also selected for The Milk of Dreams, the main exhibition at the LIX Venice Biennale in 2022, curated by Cecilia Alemani.
His work is included in prestigious institutions and private collections globally.
Cultural Partner
The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is a forum for discussion and artistic experimentation that places contemporary art in all its forms, its exhibition, and its accessibility to the public at the core of its institutional mission. Since its founding in 1984 by Alain Dominique Perrin, who was President of Cartier at that time, its activities have promoted collaboration and exchange across artistic disciplines. Built up over the course of its exhibitions, its Collection reflects the multidisciplinarity and breadth of the themes it explores through its programming, in resonance with society and contemporary stakes.
The Fondation Cartier carries out its activities and commitments with the desire and ambition to make contemporary art accessible to everyone. Through its program of exhibitions and events, the Fondation Cartier creates pathways between creative spaces and fosters a genuine environment for multicultural exchange.
Its new Parisian premises, located at 2 Place du Palais-Royal in a Haussmannian building constructed in 1855, have been completely reconceived by architect Jean Nouvel. The dynamic architecture he envisioned, consisting of five mobile platforms, allows for fully adjustable spatial configurations and lighting variations, multiplying the possibilities for programming and exhibition-making. The architecture acts as a flexible system serving the institution’s commitments, open to the broad spectrum of visual arts, crafts, performance, and science.
Expanding its potential, the Fondation Cartier has turned this unique venue into a space for educational innovation and shared aesthetic experiences, where artists and audiences come together to open up new perspectives on contemporary art and culture.
