Jorge F. Rivas Pérez - Böcker

Mayer Center Symposium XVIII, Readings in Latin American StudiesThis volume collects the work of nine scholars who shared their research at the 2018 symposium presented by the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum. This international group of scholars assembled to explore the theme of materiality in the Americas. The chapters consider materiality from a wide variety of angles, including hagiographic martyr portraiture, arms and armor in Spanish America, religious sculpture, the interpretation of the tocapu in post conquest Peru, and collections assembled both in the Americas and of goods sent back to Europe.Thomas B. F. Cummins (Harvard University) explores how tocapus were altered to coincide and intersect with European forms and objects after the Spanish invasion of Peru.Emmanuel Ortega (University of Illinois Chicago) provides insights into the material world of Franciscan hagiographic portraiture.Donna Pierce (independent scholar/formerly Denver Art Museum) focuses on the commercial exchange of Asian luxury goods at the northern border of the Spanish Empire.Rafael Ramos Sosa (Universidad de Sevilla) considers the role of sculpture in the daily life of viceregal Lima.MarÍa Paola RodrÍguez Prada (Museo Nacional de Colombia) comments on the founding of the National Museum of Colombia in the 1820s, shortly after independence from Spain.Olaya Sanfuentes (Pontificia Universidad CatÓlica de Chile) presents a case study of Bishop Baltasar Jaime MartÍnez CompaÑon’s index of Peruvian natural and cultural history.Gabriela Siracusano (National Research Council, Argentina; Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; and Universidad de Buenos Aires) examines the aesthetic parameters and material traditions of indigenous artists producing religious art.Jonathan Tavares (Art Institute of Chicago) uses rare surviving objects and written historical accounts to present an overview of arms and armor in Spanish America.Antonio UrquÍzar-Herrera (Universidad Nacional de EducaciÓn a Distancia, Madrid) considers the role that artifacts collected and sent to Spain by early explorers played in building an image of the Americas.

In the first half of the 1900s, Latin American artists, architects, and designers searched for visual languages that matched the modern identities of their young nations. Surprisingly, many found their answers in the aesthetics of their colonial pasts. This symposium volume explores that paradoxical Neocolonialism by examining a wide array of art, from painting and architecture to furniture and graphic design. A group of international scholars probe the meanings, cultural agendas, and contradictions that emerged when artists in democratic nations grounded their work in the visual regime of imperial Spain at a time of rising consciousness of Indigenous cultures and Panamericanism.  In essays about countries such as Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Venezuela over more than a half century, Neocolonial: Inventing Modern Latin American Nations presents the ways that artists, architects, and designers adapted to political and aesthetic realities so as to create a renewed visual identity. These explorations—evident in designs for books, furniture, and magazines and the construction of private homes and large-scale urban planning for modern cities—showcase a style that sought to define national identities for citizens and international audiences alike.  A richly illustrated volume featuring previously unpublished images from research trips, architectural and design archives, and seldom-seen historical materials marks the twentieth symposium volume from the Denver Art Museum’s Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art. This groundbreaking study offers the most recent and comprehensive examination of the arts during a politically volatile period of transformation and the redefinition of national identity across Latin America.

For 250 years (1565–1815), the Manila Galleon transported Asian goods from the Philippines to the Americas under the rule of the Spanish Crown. Stopping in Acapulco, Mexico, the silk, fans, lacquered goods, clothes, and porcelain brought by the galleon rapidly circulated through the Americas, introducing a new visual culture that influenced objects, consumers, makers, and merchants alike. Conversely, products imported from the Americas, such as silver, indigo dye, cochineal red, chili peppers, and corn, had an enormous impact on Asia.Eleven scholars from the United States, Mexico, and Singapore present current research on how the vast exchange of materials, techniques, and ideas between continents impacted the trajectory of art and material culture across the Pacific.This richly illustrated book marks the twenty-third symposium volume from the Denver Art Museum’s Mayer Center for Ancient and Latin American Art. Editors & ContributorsEdited by Jorge Rivas PÉrez, Emily Rauh Pulitzer Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Saint Louis Art Museum; Karina H. Corrigan, Deputy Chief Curator and H. A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art at the Peabody Essex Museum; with Kathryn Santner, Assistant Curator of Latin American Art at the Denver Art MuseumWith contributions byKarina H. Corrigan, Peabody Essex MuseumRoberto Junco, Instituto Nacional de AntropologÍa e HistoriaRonda Kasl, The Metropolitan Museum of ArtAbi Lua, Michener Art MuseumDiego Javier Luis, John Hopkins UniversitySamuel Luterbacher, Occidental College Margaret Connors McQuade, Museum of the City of New YorkClement Onn, Asian Civilisations MuseumsJorge Rivas PÉrez, Saint Louis Art MuseumAldo Solano Rojas, Universidad Nacional AutÓnoma de MÉxicoKathryn Santner, Denver Art Museum

ReVisión: A New Look at Art in the Americas considers what makes the Americas the Americas. With essays by leading scholars of Latin American art history, the publication explores the ways in which the past continues to exert an influence on communities throughout the region.Artists such as Alexander Apóstol, Juan Enrique Bedoya, Johanna Calle, Ronny Quevedo, Sandy Rodríguez, Eduardo Sarabia, Clarissa Tossin,and Cecilia Vicuña draw on centuries of imagery from both before and after the Conquest to grapple with questions of identity, exploitation of natural resources, and displacement. The essays in this catalog provide a framework for understanding the region’s nuanced history of creation, destruction, and renewal.