Cian Dayrit: Liberties Were Taken

The Blaffer Art Museum is proud to present Liberties Were Taken, the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of works by Manila-based artist Cian Dayrit. Known globally for cartographic artworks, Dayrit investigates notions of power and identity represented and reproduced in monuments, museums, and maps. The exhibition brings together site-specific installations, embroidered textiles, and elaborate paintings created over a decade of participatory actions and solidarity work in the Philippines and around the world. Deploying visual tools, such as written text, graphs, and symbols, the artist positions land as a site of struggle through archival references, protest imagery, and grassroots counter-mapping.

Cian Dayrit (b. 1989, Manila) studied at the University of the Philippines and has exhibited in international biennials, including the Sydney Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art; Bangkok Biennale, Kathmandu Triennale, New Museum Triennial “Songs for Sabotage”, New York; and Göteborg Biennial. Dayrit has also participated in exhibitions at Museo Reina Sofia and CentroCentro in Madrid; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; ParaSite, Hong Kong; Hammer Museum, L.A.; and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. His work will be shown in 2024 at Barbican Art Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, UK.

This exhibition is organized by Cynthia Woods Mitchell Assistant Curator Erika Mei Chua Holum in collaboration with Lualo Studio in ℅ Christian Toledo, Jenah Maravilla, Rea Sampilo, and Trisha Morales. Major funding for Cian Dayrit: Liberties Were Taken is provided by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, Terra Foundation for American Art, the John R. Eckel Jr. Foundation, the John P. McGovern Foundation, the Stolbun Family Foundation, and Blaffer Art Museum Advisory Board members. The following donors sustain Blaffer Art Museum in perpetuity by giving through endowments: Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs, Jane Dale Owen Endowment in the Blaffer Art Museum, Jo and Jim Furr Exhibition Endowment in the Blaffer Art Museum, Sarah C. Morian Endowment, and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Blaffer Gallery Endowment.