P.L.A.C.E. Program
Madalena Salazar
&
Susana Stoll
Entre el Norte y el Sur de Nueva Espana:
Understanding the Colonial Past in the
Province of New Mexico and Captaincy General
de Guatemala
Born and raised in Albuquerque, NM, Madalena Salazar is an M.A. candidate in Spanish Colonial Art History. She received her B.A. in Anthropology (Archaeology) from UNM in 2003. As such, her interdisciplinary background fostered an interest in broadening current understandings of earlier visual and material cultures by providing a more accurate reconstruction of past contexts, artistic practices, audiences, and the subsequent production of meaning. As a rogue curator, she will introduce innovative, relational approaches to the formation of the museum exhibition, Entre el norte y sur de nueva españa: Interrelations Between the Provinces of New Mexico and the Captaincy General of Guatemala.
Susana is an M.A. Candidate in Art History, focusing on Spanish Colonial art and graduated from DePaul University in 1999 with a major in International Studies and a double minor in Art History and Spanish. During the summer of 2005 she participated in the UNM Copan Field School on Maya Art and Architecture in Copan, Honduras, led by Dr. Jennifer Alhfeldt. While in Central America, Susana traveled to Guatemala and became interested in the colonial art of that country. Her thesis is on the history and collection of the Museo Colonial of Antigua, Guatemala.
This exhibition will consider the artistic, economic, and cultural relationships between the supposed “peripheries” and “centers” of New Spain. The northern territory of New Mexico and the southern Captaincy General of Guatemala have been traditionally overlooked by scholars of New Spain because of their distant locations from the imperial, viceregal administrative center of Mexico City. We will explore the differences and similarities that existed between each region in this vast territory through the presentation of examples drawn from Colonial visual and material culture. This artistic exploration, anchored to the strategic display of selected objects, will allow the audience to acquire a more coherent understanding of the provinces in their broader socio-political context.