Claudia Martínez Garay (Ayacucho, Peru, 1983) is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates how Peruvian sociopolitical history and memory are constructed and transmitted through images, narratives, and artifacts.
In the installation Y no podrán matarlo [And They Could Never Kill Him] (2019–26), the artist traces the legacy of the Indigenous leader Túpac Amaru II (1738–1781), who led one of the largest anticolonial rebellions in 18th-century Peru. Sentenced to death for leading the uprising, the cacique was tied by his arms and legs to four horses, which were spurred in opposite directions to dismember him. When this attempt failed, he was executed, and his limbs were distributed across the country as a public display of his defeat.
In the video, excerpts from the film Túpac Amaru (1984), in which Reynaldo Arenas plays the cacique, are juxtaposed with scenes where the actor reprises the role 35 years later. The sequence recounts the battles fought during the rebellion and the revolutionary’s attempted execution through the fragmentation of his body. Martínez Garay revisits this event by envisioning the rebirth of Amaru II through 3D animations, in which his arms, legs, and head regenerate and reassemble.
The projection of the leader’s immortality, explored in the video and encapsulated in the work’s title, is also extended into the exhibition space, where a drawing depicting the attempted dismemberment is carved into the faces of four monolithic Styrofoam sculptures. Evoking Andean totems, the objects take on a ritualistic and devotional quality, turning the installation into a monument to the Peruvian Indigenous anticolonial struggle. By intertwining a historical past, its present-day reenactment, and an imagined future, the artist reaffirms the figure of Túpac Amaru II as an emblem of permanence and freedom.

Video Room: Claudia Martínez Garay is curated by Teo Teotonio, Curatorial Assistant, MASP.
The exhibition is part of the year devoted to the Latin American Histories, which also includes solo exhibitions by Carolina Caycedo, Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Colectivo Acciones de Arte, Damián Ortega, Jesús Soto (1923–2005), La Chola Poblete, Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla, Pablo Delano, Rosa Elena Curruchich (1958–2005), Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Santiago Yahuarcani, and Sol Calero, in addition to the collective exhibition Latin American Histories, as well as exhibitions in the Video Room by Clara Ianni, Edgar Calel, Oscar Muñoz, and Regina José Galindo.