Curator, Samantha Friedman: O’Keeffe made a trip to Peru when she was 69 years old. She was particularly taken with Sacsayhuamán, and the incredible stonework that the Incans had used to build this fortress without using any mortar. In these very small drawings, she crops closely around certain arrangements of shapes of stone, so that you’re not quite certain whether she’s depicting something realistic or something abstract.
Artist, Armando Andrade Tudela: My name is Armando Andrade Tudela. I’m a Peruvian artist.
Sacsayhuamán is a fortress and a sanctuary. We don’t know exactly how the rocks got there, how the Inca were able to shape them to be able to construct the walls and make the fortress. A lot of the late Inca constructions were developed with such precision and engineering, suddenly you understand the monumentality of the Inca project.
When you see O’Keeffe’s drawings, you’re only seeing fragments of how these rocks are put together. The relation between landscape and construction in Peru is something that is indivisible, so seeing the fragment is a bit of a misunderstanding. To me, they start becoming almost like inflatable rocks.
She did something that is very challenging as an artist: she developed a vision. What is happening is that you are put in a position, as a viewer, where you are forced to see the strengths of her vision above what she’s representing.