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The Multiple Reinventions of the Américas in Context

GETTY CENTER

Museum Lecture Hall

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America is a European invention. Between 1492 and the late 1800s, European conquistadors, travelers, and artists produced prints, books, and objects that illustrated the natural resources and Native peoples of the Americas, often constructing fantastic and fictional ideas. Mixing reality with their own conventions and interpretations, they created portable and reproducible images that circulated around the world, fueling the spread of stereotypes and prejudices. This symposium presents efforts of scholars and curators to contextualize the creation of those images and to investigate their formation. The event will include a conversation with Indigenous artist Denilson Baniwa.

This event will be available in Spanish and English. Some of the presentations will be conducted in Portuguese.

América es una invención europea. Entre 1492 y finales del siglo XIX, conquistadores, viajeros y artistas europeos produjeron grabados, libros y objetos que mostraban los recursos naturales y la gente nativa de las Américas, construyendo en muchas ocasiones ideas fantásticas y ficticias. Al mezclar la realidad con sus propias tradiciones e interpretaciones, crearon imágenes fáciles de llevar y de reproducir que viajaron por el mundo, lo cual aumentó la difusión de estereotipos y prejuicios. Este simposio presenta los esfuerzos de académicos y curadores para contextualizar la creación de esas imágenes e investigar cómo se formaron. El evento incluirá una conversación con el artista indígena Denilson Baniwa.

Este evento estará disponible en español e inglés. Algunas de las presentaciones se realizarán en portugués.

Program Schedule

Denilson Baniwa is a member of the Baniwa Indigenous group, who live in the state of Amazonas in Brazil. Through his art he questions the colonial past and stereotypical representations of Indigenous people, often layering components from historical art with elements from his own cultural traditions. He has been part of exhibitions at Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Museu de Arte do Rio, and the Sidney Biennial.

Daniela Bleichmar is professor of art history and history at the University of Southern California. Bleichmar's research addresses the histories of art and science in colonial Latin America and early modern Europe. Her publications include Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment (2012) and Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin (2017).

Thomas B. F. Cummins is director of Dumbarton Oaks and the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of the History of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of ten books, the latest of which is Sacred Matters: Animacy and Authority in the Americas (2020).

Nicolás Kwiatkowski is a specialist in Early Modern cultural history. He works as a professor and researcher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. His publications include Barbara y guerrera. La historia de Tomiris, reina de los masagetas (2021), "Fuimos muy peores en vicios" (2020), and Historia natural y mítica de los elefantes (2019) co-authored with José E. Burucúa.

Renato Menezes is curator at Pinacoteca in São Paulo. Menezes is a PhD candidate at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. His interests include the representation of affections in the visual arts since the Early Modern period as well as the cultural exchanges between Europe and Latin America. He has recently co-edited França Antartica: Ensaios Interdisciplinares (2021).

Fernanda Pitta is professor at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, MAC-USP. Her research interests focus primarily on discussing paradigms of national art in transnational and postcolonial contexts. She is co-editor of Trabalho de artista: imagem e autoimagem (1829–1929) (2018) and Ana Maria Tavares: In the very place (2016).

This program is organized by Idurre Alonso, curator of Latin American collections at the Getty Research Institute, and is in conjunction with the exhibition Reinventing the Américas: Construct. Erase. Repeat.

The symposium will be recorded and available on the Getty Research Institute YouTube channel following the event.