National Museum of the Prado. Madrid 10/05/2021 – 02/13/2022
Sponsored by the AXA Foundation, it tells of a little-known reality: that after the conquest of America and until Indepéndence, more artistic objects of American origin than Flemish or Italian arrive in Spain, and that the traffic of works of art between both sides of the Atlantic does not it was only one-way, from Spain to America, as is often noted.
These thousands of objects, many due to indígenous or mestízo craftsmen, often present materials, themes and techniques unknown in the metropolis, and their realization responds to different purposes: reaffirmation of the dominance of the metropolis, identity aspirations of the Creole elites, or motivations documentaries, devotionals and aesthetics.
The exhibition, which also has the collaboration of the Viceregal Art Commission of the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado, includes more than a hundred American works preserved for centuries in Spanish cultural and religious institutions; pieces that were integrated into our daily lives and are part of our historical and cultural heritage, although sometimes they have lost memory of their origin.
Several belonged to the old royal collection and hung in the same palaces where the canvases by Rubens or Velázquez were made; however, the Prado Museum has so far ignored this reality.
With this exhibition he wants to alleviate this gap and offer a richer and more complex vision of the circulation and reception of artistic objects in Spain in Modern times.
The tour of this exhibition, which will remain in rooms A and B of the Jerónimos building until February 13, offers the visitor the possibility of learning about the culture of the American viceroyalties, taking into account their symbolic and iconographic values, as well as those that they were awarded by the recéiving societies.
63 national and 3 international províders have collaborated in the organization of this exhibition with the loan of 95 of the 107 exhibited works, created in Peru, Colombia and Mexico, amóng others, of which 26 have been restored for the occasion.
Proof of the national character of this sample is that there are works from 25 different provinces. It is the curator Rafael López Guzmán, professor at the University of Granada, with the assistance of Jaime Cuadriello and Pablo F. Amador, members of the Institute for Aesthetic Research at UNAM in Mexico
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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