"Trap and Lure: Colonialism, Wax, and the Work of Art History"
Tuesday, April 22nd, 4:45 PM
Goldwin Smith Hall G22
Abstract
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries in the Iberian, Catholic world wax was not quite as important as food and water, but almost. Viscous and sticky, pliant and combustible, wax bound bees and humans into a vast trans-Pacific shipping network. Very little of this once abundant material survives, but that which does cues questions about the galleon trade, collecting practices, and the entwining of spiritual and economic desires. Focusing on these rare remnants, this talk asks how wax collected in the Philippines and sent to the Americas might figure into—and re-figure—an art history of colonialism.
Biography
Dana Leibsohn is Alice Pratt Brown Professor of Art at Smith College and General Editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Colonial Latin American Review. Her research and writing address colonialism in the early modern Americas and Pacific world. She received her PhD in Art History from UCLA.
