COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SEMINAR ON THE ARTS OF AFRICA, OCEANIA, AND THE AMERICAS

Dr. Lisa Trever

Lisa and Bernard Selz Associate Professor in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, Columbia University

Denaturalizing Moche Naturalism

The ancient Moche artists of coastal Peru have long been lauded in art historical and archaeological scholarship for their abilities to recreate living forms in fired clay. Among the earliest objects of Moche facture to be admitted to the modern Western realm of art as such are the virtuosic portrait vessels and other lively ceramic depictions of flora and fauna. Their likenesses are so compelling that early modern collections were inventoried according to the species depicted and scholars have argued for the identifications of particular historical individuals within the ceramic archive. But when the corpus of Moche ceramic art is more broadly considered, and when the taxonomies imposed on it through foreign epistemologies are suspended, its defiance of expected Western order becomes apparent. In this presentation I explore ways that images of living beings were formally and symbolically entangled in Moche art, sometimes to “surreal” effect. These entanglements reveal emic perspectives on substance, being, and the expressive power of plastic imagination that exceeds the limits of “naturalism”.

Please note that the seminar will be held on Wednesday, not Thursday.

Wine and Cheese from 6:00pm

Those wishing to do so may join us for dinner with the speaker after the presentation.

MADE POSSIBLE BY A GENEROUS GIFT FROM A MEMBER OF THE SEMINAR