UF Center for Latin American Studies
Drs. Stanfield-Mazzi and Vargas-Betancourt rethink the role of the artist and recover works of unacknowledged creators in colonial society
May 17, 2023
Center affiliate professors Maya Stanfield-Mazzi (Art+Art History) and Margarita Vargas-Betancourt (Latin American and Caribbean Collection) have edited "Collective Creativity and Artistic Agency in Colonial Latin America," published by University of Florida Press, thanks to the Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Congratulations to Drs. Stanfield-Mazzi and Vargas-Betancourt!
Learn more about the book: https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9781683403524
Learn more about the SHARP grant from the NEH: https://issuu.com/uf_latam/docs/the_latinamericanist_fall_2021/s/14527237
This volume addresses and expands the role of the artist in colonial Latin American society, featuring essays by specialists in the field that consider the ways society conceived of artists and the ways artists defined themselves. Broadening the range of ways that creativity can be understood, contributors show that artists functioned as political figures, activists, agents in commerce, definers of a canon, and revolutionaries.
Chapters provide studies of artists in Peru, Mexico, and Cuba between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Instead of adopting the paradigm of individuals working alone to chart new artistic paths, contributors focus on human relationships, collaborations, and exchanges. The volume offers new perspectives on colonial artworks, some well known and others previously overlooked, including discussions of manuscript painting, featherwork, oil painting, sculpture, and mural painting.
Most notably, the volume examines attitudes and policies related to race and ethnicity, exploring various ethnoracial dynamics of artists within their social contexts. Through a decolonial lens not often used in the art history of the era and region, Collective Creativity and Artistic Agency in Colonial Latin America examines artists’ engagement in society and their impact within it.
