Transforming Images: New Mexican Santos in-between Worlds

Please join us for a special two-day program bringing together artists, scholars, spiritual leaders, and community voices to explore the sacred images of New Mexican santeros that form the heart of the collection cared for by the FAC. This program is free and open to the public.

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Panel Discussion

Sept. 24, 5 p.m.

Our panelists will reflect on the spiritual, artistic, and cultural dimensions of these works and their enduring place in the devotional life of the American Southwest.

Panelists:
James Cordova, Moderator — Colorado College Innovator-in-Residence, Gathering Place co-curator 
Claire Farago — Professor Emerita of Art History, University of Colorado Boulder
Melanie Yazzie — Professor of Printmaking, University of Colorado Boulder
Charlie Carrillo — Independent Scholar and Santero, Santa Fe
Doreen Durán — Descendant of the historic caretakers of the Durán Family Chapel, Talpa, NM

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Keynote: Claire Farago, Professor Emerita, University of Colorado Boulder

Sept. 25, 6:30 p.m.

Who owns the past? From the mid-eighteenth century, in addition to importing religious art from Mexico, New Mexico produced its own altarpieces and individual devotional panels depicting Christ, the Virgin, and saints. The distinctiveness of New Mexican Christian art raises questions central to the social construction of meaning. The process of trying to account for cultural identity in a heterogeneous colonial society also raises issues of power and interpretative privilege. For the sacred is a contested category. No one needs reminders in today’s world of contentious religious fundamentalisms that one person’s sacred is another’s taboo. This talk articulates what is at stake regarding the contested interpretation of sacred objects through a case study of historical New Mexican Christian religious images. Studying the New Mexican material has led
me to consider cultural identity in a very basic way: how people
manipulate whatever material culture is available in their environment
to negotiate their relationship with the world.

Reception to follow in Smith Family Gallery.

This event is sponsored by the Paul Frederick Sheffer Memorial Fund for Roman Catholic Studies at Colorado College.