Image: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Mercedes Dorame’s ‘Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation’ is on view at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, from March 22, 2026, to March 31, 2029, according to the institution’s own exhibition page. The Huntington’s August 18, 2026, newsletter lists the presentation as running now through March 2029.
The Huntington describes the work as a commissioned large-scale installation by the Tongva artist, linking photography, painting, sculpture, ceramics and a soundscape of Tongva poetry. It draws on archival research, including historical images of regional freshwater springs, and presents monumental photographs together with sculptural and painted elements.
For Dorame, the freshwater spring is a site of encounter comparable to The Huntington itself, a place where histories are surfaced through the historical archive; the museum frames the installation around questions of what is preserved and how it is cared for. Los Angeles–based and born in 1980, Dorame calls on her Tongva ancestry in installations and photographs concerned with Indigenous presence on the land.
The presentation marks Dorame’s return to The Huntington, where she served as the 2023–24 artist-in-residence. The institution states that the project was supported in part by a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation.
