Tulane University

Dr. Joanne Pillsbury, the Andrall E. Pearson Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will give a presentation titled From the Heart of the Andes: On Creating Golden Kingdoms, as part of the 2017 Wladis Seminar on Curatorial Careers at the Woldenberg Art Center, Tulane University. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dr. Pillsbury will give a behind-the-scenes view of the exhibition Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas (Getty Research Institute and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fall 2017-Spring 2018), and the international research project that inspired it. Drawing upon significant recent archaeological findings and new investigations into the roles of artists, their patrons, and their workshops, the lecture focuses on luxury arts in the lands between the two great imperial capitals of the ancient Americas: Cusco, the seat of the Inca state, and Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. It probes a fundamental question: How can we discern and interpret indigenous ideas of value?

Dr. Pillsbury is a specialist in the art and archaeology of the Precolumbian Americas. Pillsbury earned her PhD from Columbia University. She was previously associate director of the Getty Research Institute and director of Precolumbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She is the author, editor, or co-editor of numerous publications, including the three-volume Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900 (2008), the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award recipient Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks (2012), and Past Presented: Archaeological Illustration and the Ancient Americas (2012), which was awarded the Association for Latin American Art Book Award.

The lecture is sponsored by the Newcomb Art Department, supported by a gift from Mark and Diane Wladis.

For more information contact Dr. Elizabeth Boone via email to eboone@tulane.edu.

For more information, view the official flyer here.