Emmanuel Ortega | University of Illinois at Chicago (original) (raw)
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Papers by Emmanuel Ortega
Hyperallergic, 2023
BENTONVILLE, Ark.-In art historical accounts, the influence of Rococo is traditionally tracked ac... more BENTONVILLE, Ark.-In art historical accounts, the influence of Rococo is traditionally tracked across European art, especially in France, southern Germany, and Austria. However, as art history often does, the impact of artistic currents like this in colonized areas is erased or downplayed. Yvette Mayorga's What a Time to be, a solo exhibition at The Momentary, curated by Acting Curator of Visual Arts Kaitlin Maestas and conceived during 2020, takes its name from Art Reviews Decolonizing Rococo Yvette Mayorga demonstrates the efficiency of Rococo in articulating class distortions of US Latinx peoples.
... Professor, Department of Art and Art History, UNM Darío A. Euraque, Ph.D., Professor of Histo... more ... Professor, Department of Art and Art History, UNM Darío A. Euraque, Ph.D., Professor of History and International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut Abigail McEwen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland ...
Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas, 2017
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2019
Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche, 2022
Des Moines Art Center, 2021
Art Bulletin, 2021
During the late nineteenth century, the Mexican picturesque, through its seemingly innocent charm... more During the late nineteenth century, the Mexican picturesque, through its seemingly innocent charm, veiled its political function and promoted sentiments of national pride. From its ideological foundation in colonial racial politics, this pictorial convention negotiated cultural identity in the newly independent republic by exalting the history of its Indigenous peoples while undermining their subjectivity. By understanding the picturesque as a by-product of the global literary style of sentimentality, we can recognize images of nation building that celebrate a sanitized history, appealing to human emotions in order to justify the supremacy of what was considered enlightened modern civilization.
Materiality: Making Spanish America, 2021
The role of eighteen-century martyr portraits was to illustrate a type of imperial visual languag... more The role of eighteen-century martyr portraits was to illustrate a type of imperial visual language that aimed to emphasize the wild nature of the Native body and its (dis)placement within the disputed territory of Northern New Spain. Pueblo Native peoples of New Mexico, for instance, are represented as the signifier of the necessary violence required to create a Franciscan martyr. The martyrs were often portrayed with a series of devotional objects, such as crucifixes and Marian effigies, that aimed to define their role as successful predicadores (Preachers). As the central theme of this presentation, I review the iconography of anxiety through these objects to reveal how eighteenth-century Novohispanic Franciscans, partly defined their existence in relation to northern Natives’ resistance. The formulaic image of the “barbarian” introduced in the visual culture of the sixteenth-century was re-formulated into the figure of the chichimeco, who brought forth Franciscan anxieties against resilient indigenous peoples of the empire’s northern peripheries. The articulation of this anxiety depended on the juxtaposition of visual and ideological opposites, and graphic antithetical tools that helped define difference between missionaries and Natives. I dissect and analyze the tension behind all these objects of spiritual conquest to demonstrate how the anxiety of events such as the Pueblo Revolution of 1680 changed the way Franciscans defined their religious and political piety for the next one hundred years.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, Franciscan martyr portraits became popular in monastic s... more In the middle of the eighteenth century, Franciscan martyr portraits became popular in monastic spaces of the Spanish viceroyalties of central Mexico. To visually construct the meritorious life of these martyrs, artists drew inspiration from hagiographic chronicles that described various Native rebellions, which featured the graphic depiction of the gruesome deaths of friars. The prospect of martyrdom enticed novices to follow in their footsteps in service to God, but also to the Crown, whose presence in to the northern territories of New Spain intensified during the period of the Bourbon reforms. In this essay, I explore this propagandistic approach to martyr images by analyzing examples anchored to the Franciscan missionary history of New Mexico.
Hyperallergic, 2023
BENTONVILLE, Ark.-In art historical accounts, the influence of Rococo is traditionally tracked ac... more BENTONVILLE, Ark.-In art historical accounts, the influence of Rococo is traditionally tracked across European art, especially in France, southern Germany, and Austria. However, as art history often does, the impact of artistic currents like this in colonized areas is erased or downplayed. Yvette Mayorga's What a Time to be, a solo exhibition at The Momentary, curated by Acting Curator of Visual Arts Kaitlin Maestas and conceived during 2020, takes its name from Art Reviews Decolonizing Rococo Yvette Mayorga demonstrates the efficiency of Rococo in articulating class distortions of US Latinx peoples.
... Professor, Department of Art and Art History, UNM Darío A. Euraque, Ph.D., Professor of Histo... more ... Professor, Department of Art and Art History, UNM Darío A. Euraque, Ph.D., Professor of History and International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut Abigail McEwen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland ...
Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas, 2017
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2019
Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche, 2022
Des Moines Art Center, 2021
Art Bulletin, 2021
During the late nineteenth century, the Mexican picturesque, through its seemingly innocent charm... more During the late nineteenth century, the Mexican picturesque, through its seemingly innocent charm, veiled its political function and promoted sentiments of national pride. From its ideological foundation in colonial racial politics, this pictorial convention negotiated cultural identity in the newly independent republic by exalting the history of its Indigenous peoples while undermining their subjectivity. By understanding the picturesque as a by-product of the global literary style of sentimentality, we can recognize images of nation building that celebrate a sanitized history, appealing to human emotions in order to justify the supremacy of what was considered enlightened modern civilization.
Materiality: Making Spanish America, 2021
The role of eighteen-century martyr portraits was to illustrate a type of imperial visual languag... more The role of eighteen-century martyr portraits was to illustrate a type of imperial visual language that aimed to emphasize the wild nature of the Native body and its (dis)placement within the disputed territory of Northern New Spain. Pueblo Native peoples of New Mexico, for instance, are represented as the signifier of the necessary violence required to create a Franciscan martyr. The martyrs were often portrayed with a series of devotional objects, such as crucifixes and Marian effigies, that aimed to define their role as successful predicadores (Preachers). As the central theme of this presentation, I review the iconography of anxiety through these objects to reveal how eighteenth-century Novohispanic Franciscans, partly defined their existence in relation to northern Natives’ resistance. The formulaic image of the “barbarian” introduced in the visual culture of the sixteenth-century was re-formulated into the figure of the chichimeco, who brought forth Franciscan anxieties against resilient indigenous peoples of the empire’s northern peripheries. The articulation of this anxiety depended on the juxtaposition of visual and ideological opposites, and graphic antithetical tools that helped define difference between missionaries and Natives. I dissect and analyze the tension behind all these objects of spiritual conquest to demonstrate how the anxiety of events such as the Pueblo Revolution of 1680 changed the way Franciscans defined their religious and political piety for the next one hundred years.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, Franciscan martyr portraits became popular in monastic s... more In the middle of the eighteenth century, Franciscan martyr portraits became popular in monastic spaces of the Spanish viceroyalties of central Mexico. To visually construct the meritorious life of these martyrs, artists drew inspiration from hagiographic chronicles that described various Native rebellions, which featured the graphic depiction of the gruesome deaths of friars. The prospect of martyrdom enticed novices to follow in their footsteps in service to God, but also to the Crown, whose presence in to the northern territories of New Spain intensified during the period of the Bourbon reforms. In this essay, I explore this propagandistic approach to martyr images by analyzing examples anchored to the Franciscan missionary history of New Mexico.