Metal Ideologies
Art and Technology in the Coastal Dynasties of Ancient Peru
Alicia Boswell
Assistant Professor in History of Art and Architecture
University of California, Santa Barbara
Fellow, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library (2023-2024)
POSTPONED
The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301
James A. Doyle
Director, Matson Museum of Anthropology
Associate Research Professor of Anthropology
Affiliate Professor of Art History
Penn State University
Thursday, April, 4 2024 – 6:30 PM EST
The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301
| The Department of Art History invites you to attend the second in a series of lectures that forms our Emerging Scholars Series. The aim of this lecture series is to better orient our own faculty, students, and broader NYU community to the exciting field of the arts of the Ancient Americas. James A. Doyle (Director, Matson Museum of Anthropology; Associate Research Professor of Anthropology and Affiliate Professor of Art History, Penn State University) will be presenting the lecture “The Royal Arts of Ancient Panama.” Please Note: All non-NYU community members will need to register for this event in order to gain access to the campus building where this event will be held. Please RSVP below. In ancient times as in the contemporary world, Panama was the center of the Americas, a vital landscape that served as a nexus of intellectual and material exchange between North and South America and between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Ancestral artists from the Isthmus created astonishing painted ceramics and ornaments of cast and hammered metals, greenstone, marine shell, fragrant plant resins, and other materials. These works formed elaborate burial assemblages lavished upon important patrons in some of the richest entombments in the ancient world. The Royal Arts of Ancient Panama represents a long-term research and exhibition project reevaluating the art and archaeology of societies known as Gran Coclé (ca. AD 500-1100) in Central Panama, undertaken in partnership with Panamanian scholars and Indigenous knowledge holders. The collaborative international project aims to reveal new insights about distinct forms of governance in human societies, proposing a new model of divine kingship based on archaeological evidence and 16th-century observations by Spanish colonizers. After establishing the interpretive framework for Coclé artistic production as a courtly, royal practice, the project reconceptualizes the extraordinary forms and iconography of bodily regalia and the production and decoration of ceramic feasting vessels. This fresh take on Gran Coclé artistry also implicates the enduring legacies of U.S. imperialism and highlights contemporary cultural connections with the Indigenous descendants in Panama today. |
| Date: Thursday, April 4, 2024 Time: 6:30 PM Location: The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301Please use the link below to register. Registration is encouraged, but not required.Reservation Link |
The Royal Inca Tunic
A Biography of an Andean Masterpiece
Andrew J. Hamilton
Associate Curator of the Arts of the Americas
The Art Institute of Chicago
Lecturer, Department of Art History
The University of Chicago
Thursday, March 14, 2024 – 6:30 PM EST
The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301
| The Department of Art History invites you to attend the first in a series of lectures that forms our Emerging Scholars Series. The aim of this lecture series is to better orient our own faculty, students, and broader NYU community to the exciting field of the arts of the Ancient Americas. Andrew James Hamilton (Associate Curator of Arts of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago; Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago) will be presenting the lecture “The Royal Inca Tunic: A Biography of an Andean Masterpiece.” The most famous work of Andean art in the world is an enigmatic tunic in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Thought to be the only surviving royal vestment of the Inca Empire, it has also spawned controversial theories that its intricate patterns are a long-lost writing system. For over a decade, Andrew Hamilton, associate curator of Arts of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago and lecturer in Art History at the University of Chicago, has conducted careful physical studies of this rare, royal, and radiant object. In this talk, he will piece together its remarkable life history and preview his new book forthcoming with Princeton University Press in May 2024. |
| Date: Thursday, March 14 Time: 6:30 PM Location: The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301 |
Please use the link below to register. Registration is encouraged, but not required.
 |
| Plasticities of the “Eco”: Vernacularizing Nature in Contemporary India Kajri Jain Professor of Indian Visual Culture and Contemporary Art at the University of Toronto,Mississauga Thursday, October 5th 6:30pm EST The Silver Center for Arts and Science Room 301 |
Date: Thursday, October 5th
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: The Silver Center for Arts and Science, Room 301
Please use the link below to register. Registration is encouraged, but not required.
The Department of Art History invites you to attend our Annual Affiliated lecture for the 2022-2023 academic year. Dr. Deborah Willis will be giving the lecture Artists Committed to Memory.
Date:
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Time:
6:30pm EST
Location:
Silver Center for Arts and Science
Room: 301
https://events.nyu.edu/event/313535-1Artists Committed to Memory is a presentation of contemporary art that is inspired by historical memory. The talk will consider in comparative perspectives the historic and contemporary role photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath. It addresses the making and uses of photographic archives, the narratives they tell, and the parameters that define them as objects of study. As visual collections, photographic archives present specific concerns, especially as digital technologies change the way knowledge is classified, stored, retrieved, and disseminated. The talk is based on an exhibition and publication that I co-curated with art historian Cheryl Finley in 2022 for FotoFocus. The book is published by Damiani.
Date:
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Time:
6:30pm EST
Location:
Silver Center for Arts and Science
Room: 301
https://events.nyu.edu/event/313535-1Artists Committed to Memory is a presentation of contemporary art that is inspired by historical memory. The talk will consider in comparative perspectives the historic and contemporary role photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath. It addresses the making and uses of photographic archives, the narratives they tell, and the parameters that define them as objects of study. As visual collections, photographic archives present specific concerns, especially as digital technologies change the way knowledge is classified, stored, retrieved, and disseminated. The talk is based on an exhibition and publication that I co-curated with art historian Cheryl Finley in 2022 for FotoFocus. The book is published by Damiani.
Date:
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Time:
6:30pm EST
Location:
Silver Center for Arts and Science
Room: 301
https://events.nyu.edu/event/313535-1Artists Committed to Memory is a presentation of contemporary art that is inspired by historical memory. The talk will consider in comparative perspectives the historic and contemporary role photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath. It addresses the making and uses of photographic archives, the narratives they tell, and the parameters that define them as objects of study. As visual collections, photographic archives present specific concerns, especially as digital technologies change the way knowledge is classified, stored, retrieved, and disseminated. The talk is based on an exhibition and publication that I co-curated with art historian Cheryl Finley in 2022 for FotoFocus. The book is published by Damiani.
Fields of Vision 