Gold, Thread, and Memory: Olga de Amaral at ICA Miami

Olga de Amaral in Ubaté, Colombia, 1944. Colombian Textile Artist
Credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_de_Amaral#/media/File:Olga_in_Ubat%C3%A9.jpg

Gold, Thread, and Memory: Olga de Amaral at ICA Miami

Where Life, Landscape, and Legacy Intertwine

By Miami Art Reviews

Ana Bikic

Walking into the Olga de Amaral exhibition at ICA Miami, one immediately senses that this is not just a display of textile works—it is the unfolding of a life’s journey rendered in fiber, gold, and silence. The shimmering, monumental pieces seem to hold time itself, as if suspended between ancient ritual and modern abstraction. To understand the power of this exhibition is to understand the extraordinary path that brought Amaral here.

Born in 1932 in Bogotá, Colombia, de Amaral began her artistic life steeped in architectural design, a discipline that would later echo in the structure and scale of her woven works. Her formal training at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan during the 1950s exposed her to a radically different art world—one where fiber could be more than craft; it could be sculpture, geometry, language.

This synthesis—between indigenous Colombian weaving traditions and global modernism—has defined her six-decade career. And it pulses through every work on view in Miami. In the soaring galleries of ICA, her tapestries do not merely hang; they command space. Series like "Alquimias" and "Umbras" glow with precious metals, transforming humble fibers into mystical objects. These are not simply textiles; they are portals to memory, geography, and the metaphysical.

Each piece in the show speaks to a chapter in de Amaral’s evolution. Early works echo the minimalist grids of 1960s abstraction, while later pieces, like her gold-leafed hangings, recall pre-Hispanic altars and the light of Andean landscapes. The show becomes a retrospective not just of her artistic output, but of a vision slowly refined across decades, a vision shaped by Colombia's rich cultural history, and by de Amaral’s personal quest to elevate weaving into a language of contemplation and architecture.

Her inclusion in pivotal exhibitions, such as MoMA’s 1969 “Wall Hangings,” marked her ascent into the global art scene. But unlike many contemporaries, de Amaral remained rooted in Bogotá. This choice allowed her to keep her work in deep conversation with Latin America's spiritual and material traditions. That rootedness is felt profoundly in Miami, a city whose own hybrid identity mirrors the layered richness of her art.

Now in her 90s, Olga de Amaral’s work feels more contemporary than ever. At a time when borders—between nations, disciplines, and identities are increasingly porous, her art offers a grounded and transcendent vision. In the golden threads and architectural forms at ICA Miami, we find not just the story of an artist, but the story of how place, history, and imagination can be woven together into something timeless.