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Columbia University
Thursday, October 1, 2009 | 6:15 PM
Location: 930 Schermerhorn
The Iberian expansion between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries had as an immediate result the vast circulation of overseas objects as "goods" with the consequent enrichment of the European collections, the birth of the Wonder Cabinets etc. Beyond these physical movements of new items, from Peru, Brazil, India, New Spain, Sierra Leone, or the Philippines, however, other parallel and equally significant productions circulations took place: those of texts documenting and analyzing the diversity of these creations, the qualitative exceptionality of their creators' abilities, their mythologies, their material specificities, and their possible aesthetic, theological, or political connotations as well as their key role in the Iberian domination process itself. These two movements between texts and images are intimately intertwined: as more items were being produced overseas, more texts were being devoted to their existence and production; then as more texts were being written, published, and read, more objects were desired, commissioned, produced, and shipped. The seminar will explore the variety of these sources—of genres (chronicles, histories, inventories, grammars, dictionaries, legal or inquisitorial processes), of authorships (conquistadors, missionaries, ambassadors, travelers, visitadores, cronistas, naturalists, historians, collectors, artists), etc.—in order to examine the relationship between textual and visual production in Early Modernity.
Paris X University Nanterre
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 | 6:15 PM
Location: 930 Schermerhorn
Ramapo College
Thursday, December 3, 2009 | 6:15 PM
Location: 930 Schermerhorn
This talk shares aspects of my ongoing inquiry into problems of violence and photography in Africa. At the turn of the last century the wide-spread publicizing of images of atrocities in the Congo was a critical conjunction: when the social and technical history of photography intersected in a dynamic fashion with a growing evangelical movement, with the development of the modern human rights campaign, and with a nascent anti-colonialism in Europe. My analysis explores how this conjunction was a coming together of both African and European shame that was filled with moral ambiguity-- a status whose effects are still seen in contemporary representations of Africa.
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Every year the University Seminar in the Arts of Africa, Oceania
and the Americas conducts six meetings on various subjects of
interest within the scholarly and professional community of
the New York area. For the Spring 2000 semester, we had two
distinguished Africanists and a Pre-Columbian scholar give talks
on areas of their specialty to audiences of students and professionals
alike.
In February, Dr. Elisabeth Cameron, a Curator at the Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas City, and Central African scholar
spoke about patterns in Kuba textiles. Her talk, "The Denser
the Better: Patterns and Status in Kuba Art" illuminated
for participants the status and value imported to the Kuba
culture’s (Democratic Republic of the Congo) palm-fiber
textiles based on the complexity of their patterns and manufacture
techniques. The embroidered and plush velvet-like patterns
of these textiles can be specific to particular kings, genders,
or localities, and when worn, denote a person’s particular
role within Kuba society. Such was the prestige and power
associated with these textiles, that European missionaries
adopted the cloths and their patterns for use in wall decorations
and altar cloths in their African churches. While the textiles
date back to well before the 18th and 19th century missionaries
arrived in the Kasai District in central Africa, they are
still fabricated today, although now they can be purchased
by tourists as well as kings.
April brought E. Michael Wittington, Curator of Pre-Columbian
and African Art at the Mint Museum, Charlotte to campus,
and
he spoke on "Moche Ceramic Portraiture; The Cult of Personality
in Ancient Peru." Dr. Wittington discussed how the northern
Andean Moche culture developed a uniquely narrative and realistic
art style in their ceramic vessels during the period from
400–550 CE. These mass-produced vessels contain images
of plants, animals and humans depicted singly or in anecdotal,
dynamic groupings. At least several hundred individuals
are now identified as portraits either painted or sculpted
onto
the surfaces of Moche vessels. However, in the Ancient
Andes, the realism of the Moche human representations was
unique.
Wittington argues that a cult of personality, in which
elite males exercised powerful religious and political
authority
over society, was in effect, what produced this startling
mass of naturalistic ceramic objects. Within the Andean
reciprocal economic system, Wittington believes these elite
vessels
operated
as social currency and also served to raise the status
of the individual who owned vessels, or was buried with
them
in his grave.
Our last talk of the Spring season was given by Dr. Susan
Vogel, an Africanist formerly of the Museum for African
Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, and now an Independent
Filmmaker. Dr. Vogel discussed her current project, a short
film following the history of a Fang Reliquary Figure.
The
film traces the trajectory of a particular Fang sculpture
(now in a private collection) from 1907–1970—from
its acquisition by a collector in Africa to its journey to
Europe and the United States. The story follows the marks
on the object that history leaves. It is a work of historical
fiction in which the protagonist is the object itself. Characters
in the story are based on Gunter T, a turn-of-the-century
collector of Gabon objects, an art student based on George
Braque in Paris, and an art dealer modeled after art collector
Paul Guillaume circa 1918. Dr. Vogel’s most recent exhibition,
Baule: African Art, Western Eyes (1998) began to lead her
in the direction of filmmaking in that the installations specifically
called into question how objects are seen and meant to be
seen by different audiences. Objects were installed in semi-‘private’
rooms stressing that these were pieces not meant to be viewed
by all in Baule society. This development of a "created
environment," was the beginning of the theatrical
approach for her that has since led her to film.
Like Dr. Vogel, The Seminar in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and
the Americas is moving on to different things. In the fall of
2001, regular seminar meetings were suspended so that we could
organize the West by Nonwest: 50 Years of Pre-Columbian Art
History conference at the Metropolitan Museum, NY. This three-day
event marks the only occasion that Pre-Columbian Art Historians
have ever assembled as an entire group to present the state
of their field. Art Historians from all over the country presented
papers around various themes such as identity, authenticity,
meaning, and interpretation of Pre-Columbian art by Western
scholars. Regular Seminar talks meeting every month, will resume
in the Spring 2002 semester.
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[ View the past lectures presented by this university seminar ] |
