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Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles
323-857-6000
The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820
August 5-
October 28, 2007

The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820 is an ambitious exhibition of more than 200 works of art created in the Spanish viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico and the countries of Central America, including Guatemala, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico) and Peru (Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru), as well as the Portuguese colony of Brazil. Spanning three centuries, from the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the emergence of the national independence movements, the exhibition explores both the artistic differences and commonalities throughout colonial Latin America, and features a remarkable collection of objects from public and private collections from around the world—many seen for the first time in the United States.

Organized by Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with LACMA and Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City, The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820 is a panoramic view of the artistic achievements of the New World, beginning with Columbus’s first encounter with the people of the Caribbean and concluding with the final moments of the colonial era — a period marked not only by independence movements and forming of national states, but also by the rise of academic art.

During the colonial era, various art forms produced throughout Latin America reflected seismic changes that took place and were central in the development of new identities. The exhibition includes an assortment of objects in all media — painting, sculpture, feather-work, shell-inlaid furniture, objects in gold and silver, ceramics, and textiles — that reveal the interchange between Native, European, African, and Asian cultures in Latin America. Also featured paintings by some of the most prominent masters working in the colonies, such as Miguel Cabrera, Luis Juárez, and Carlos de Villalpando in Mexico; and Melchor Pérez Holguín and Miguel del Berrío in Bolivia, among many others. 

The exhibition offers a unique perspective of the period by grouping objects into several compelling themes, and incorporates several artworks seen only in Los Angeles. The first part of the exhibition traces the early period of contact between native and European artists and how formation of new identities became the subject of some of the most intriguing works of art created in the viceroyalties, including casta paintings (depictions of racial mixings), painted maps, and festivals. The second part of the exhibition addresses the development of painting, beginning with the arrival of European masters in the 16th century to the emergence of local schools of painting in the 17nth and 18th centuries, which manifest a high degree of stylistic and iconographic originality. The tradition of local devotions, including the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico or the depiction of Archabusier Angeles from Peru, show the originality that colonial painting reached. Other major themes include the splendor of silverwork (Latin America was the main supplier of silver world wide); and the tradition of polychrome sculptures, an artistic form that developed in Europe and achieved some of its highest exponents in the New World, as seen in works from Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico. Last, the exhibition features an assortment of decorative arts, showcasing luxury as a part of the everyday fabric of colonial society and how the amalgam of visual vocabularies converged in the New World, resulting in works of tremendous vibrancy.

In 1492, Columbus’s voyage joined a vast network of trade routes between Asia, Europe, and Africa to the complex systems of trade and interaction that were already in place throughout the Americas.

Africans (free and enslaved) accompanied early Spanish and Portuguese expeditions, and before the end of the 16th century, trade with Japan and China was established via the legendary Manila galleons. While indigenous arts like feather painting and weaving continued, European artists traveled to the Americas to ply their trade and train native craftsmen.

With the blessing of the Pope, Spanish and Portuguese monarchs began converting indigenous peoples to Christianity. Missionaries established hundreds of churches, religious houses, and missions to educate the natives. During this time, churches were in need of religious objects and the indigenous people applied their artistic skills to create these relics, including silver chalices, candlesticks, censers, and elaborately wrought altarpieces, as well as embellished paintings and sculptures depicting Christ, the Virgin Mary, and a host of saints. Also, secular art — furnishings, luxury goods, portraits, and ephemeral decorations — were fabricated for the viceroys and other crown officials, along with the nobility and merchant class who moved all these examples of material culture around the vast region of Latin America.