Soy Energía

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra‘s multidisciplinary exhibition “Soy Energía” connects the historical dimension of her work with the present day.

• First institutional survey exhibition of the Chilean artist in Europe.
• Experimental practice combines drawing and painting with film and performance.
• Transnational and Indigenous perspectives are at the heart of the works.

“Soy Energía” is the first European survey of Chilean artist Sandra Vásquez de la Horra (b. 1967, Viña del Mar, Chile) and presents the transnational and Indigenous perspectives of her multidisciplinary artistic practice. Her oeuvre, which consists primarily of drawings and paintings as well as films and performances, encompasses complex events, stories, rituals, and beliefs rooted in both her upbringing in Chile and her many years living in Germany, opening up new perspectives.

“The multi-perspective nature of the work invites an encounter with the artist’s spiritual worlds, which reconcile humans and nature, and the exhibition honours her commitment to self-determination, women’s rights and human rights.

Jana Baumann, Senior Curator

The exhibition is dedicated to Vásquez de la Horra’s experimental practice, with a particular focus on her spatial, energetic, and global thinking. Her experiences of persecution, oppression, and migration play an essential role in this. The artist has developed her own exhibition practice, which is derived from working with organic materials and extends scenographic approaches into the space, conveying poignant existential experiences.

Vásquez de la Horra’s early series of works were created during the Pinochet regime in Chile in the 1980s and 1990s, during which the artist explored the body and its worldly embeddedness through signs, fragments, and language. Drawings of fabulous hybrid creatures combining human, animal, and plant features allude to the incompatibility of history and morality. The artist presents these works, which are soaked in beeswax – a technique she has been using since 1997 – in experimental hangings to create multilayered constellations. During her early years in Europe, Vásquez de la Horra created video performances and films that are being exhibited for the first time. In these works, she addresses significant themes and events such as loneliness, separation and racism. This retrospective exhibition brings together the historical dimension of her work and its contemporary development, honouring Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s transdisciplinary oeuvre spanning four decades.

“The exhibition reflects our transdisciplinary, transnational approach to programming – an approach that interweaves different yet coordinated practices and engages with history in order to simultaneously open up new ways of inhabiting the present.”

Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director

With “Soy Energía” Haus der Kunst continues its vision in re-examining art-historical canons and giving space to voices that have long been marginalised. Vásquez de la Horra’s retrospective echoes the new readings of art history in the group exhibition “For Children. Art Stories since 1968” and the changing perceptions on public monuments explored in “Cyprien Gaillard. Wassermusik”. Her intimate yet expansive drawings reflect the way Ei Arakawa-Nash transforms signs and gestures into shared languages – by incorporating public space and transforming it into a place where images, signs, and movements become encounters and shared gestures.

Exhibition catalogue Soy Energía

The fully illustrated catalogue features installation views of all exhibited artworks as well as previously unpublished historical images and archival documents by Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. It includes a series of insightful texts on her work by external authors, including John Yau and Raphael Fonseca, as well as an interview between Jana Baumann, the exhibition’s curator, and the artist. This is complemented by contributions from long-time companions of the artist, such as Cecilia Vicuña and Felipe Baeza. In addition, the artist herself has her say in a separate glossary, in which she describes the central themes of her artistic work.

The catalogue serves as an indispensable reference work on Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s four-decade career. Published in November 2025 by Mousse, Milan, it is edited by Jana Baumann at Mousse Publishing. During the exhibition, the catalogue is available at the museum ticket office and at the Walther König bookshop.

It can also be ordered by mail order at any time: please contact HDK at .

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra. Soy Energía
14.11.25 – 17.5.26
Haus der Kunst
Nordgalerie Prinzregentenstr. 1
80538 München