Feliciano Lana
Thu, 24 April 2025 – Mon, 1 June 2026
The watercolours by Indigenous artist Feliciano Lana from Brazil, who died in 2020, tell the story of contact between Indigenous people and white people on the upper Rio Negro.
Lana illuminates the global advance of colonialism and capitalism from a local and at the same time personal perspective. The images tell of the common origin of white and Indigenous people, the expulsion of white people and their return as soldiers, missionaries and researchers.
In addition to Lana’s work and his point of view, the exhibition shows works by contemporary Indigenous artists and a video installation with contemporary Indigenous witnesses.
Feliciano Lana, whose Indigenous name is Sibé, was born in 1937 in São João Batista, a small community on the Tiquié River in north-east Brazil.
Lana’s father was Desana and his mother belonged to the Tukano language group. At the age of four, in 1941, he was taken to a Salesian boarding school to be educated away from his community in the spirit of white people. Here, Lana learnt to read and write Portuguese and was taught maths, physics and geometric drawing. His time at the boarding school also marked the beginning of Lana’s relationships with the non-*I*ndigenous world, which were to characterise much of the rest of his life.
After leaving school, Lana lived in Colombia for several years. Upon returning to his homeland, he worked as a plantation labourer, bricklayer’s assistant, tractor driver, telegraph operator, brickmaker and miner. Feliciano Lana is considered by the Western world to be one of the first indigenous artists from the Amazon region.
His work began in the early 1970s when he was invited by Lithuanian-born Father Casimiro Bécksta to record the Indigenous culture of the region. Lana was originally supposed to take photographs and make audio recordings, but then decided to capture his knowledge in painted pictures. Little by little, he became an expert in visualising the traditions and mythical universe of the region.
In May 2020, Feliciano Lana Sibé died at his home in the municipality of São Francisco as a result of a COVID-19 infection.
A temporary exhibition organised by the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss in cooperation with the Ethnologisches Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Curated by Andrea Scholz, Michael Dieminger, Thiago da Costa Oliveira and Barbara Lenz.