Potosi Principle Archive

The Principio Potosi Archive is a collection of historical and contemporary sources, interviews, essays, poems, manifestos and images. It is intended as a complement and continuation of the exhibition project Principio Potosi, which was shown in 2010 at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and in 2011 at the Museo Nacional de Arte and Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz. The term Potosí Principle refers to the persistence of the extractivist logic that began with the conquest of South America until now. The exhibition discussed this through the colonial baroque images and their response by contemporary artists. It became a milestone in the postcolonial questioning of the origin of modernity and the function of art in it. The archive continues this theme. It consists of 36 booklets grouped into four volumes. Its themes are: Extractivism, Labor, Debt, Inquisition, Machine Capitalism, Decolonization Practices, and Artistic Doing.