61 min listen
Genealogies of Modernity Episode 5: Picturing Race in Colonial Mexico
FromNew Books in Art
ratings:
Length:
62 minutes
Released:
Dec 9, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Race is sometimes treated as a biological fact. It is actually a modern invention. But for this concept to gain power, its logic had to be spread – and made visible. Art historian Ilona Katzew tells the story of how Spanish colonists of modern-day Mexico developed theories of blood purity and used the casta paintings – featuring family groups with differing skin pigmentations set in domestic scenes – to represent these theories as reality. She also shares the strange challenges of curating these paintings in the present, when the paintings’ insidious ideologies have been debunked, but when mixed-race viewers also appreciate images that testify to their presence in the past.
Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Christopher Nygren, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
Featured Scholar: Ilona Katzew, Curator and Head of Latin American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Special thanks: Elise Lonich Ryan, Nayeli Riano, Jennifer Josten
For transcript, teaching aids, and other resources, click here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art
Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Christopher Nygren, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
Featured Scholar: Ilona Katzew, Curator and Head of Latin American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Special thanks: Elise Lonich Ryan, Nayeli Riano, Jennifer Josten
For transcript, teaching aids, and other resources, click here.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art
Released:
Dec 9, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Kyra Hicks, “This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and Other Pieces” (Black Threads Press, 2009): I’ll tell you something I’ve never really understood: the difference between “art” and “craft.” Yes, I get the sociological difference (“art” is made in New York and Paris; “craft” is made in Omaha and Wichita), by New Books in Art