Lightning symbol and snake dance : Aby Warburg and Pueblo art / edited by Christine Chavez, Uwe Fleckner ; with contributions by Bruce Bernstein, Christine Chavez, Lindsey Drury, Adam Duran, Uwe Fleckner, Rainer Hatoum, Kelley Hays-Gilpin, Lea S. McChesney, Nancy J. Parezo, Justin B. Richland, Erhard Schuttpelz, Sascha T. Scott, Matthew Vollgraff ; translations, Stefan Barmann, Burke Barrett, Volker Ellerbeck, Helen Ferguson, Ilze Muller, Jennifer Taylor.
Publisher:
Hatje Cantz,
Copyright Date:
2022
Description:
368 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps, portraits, facsimiles ; 30 cm
Translators' statement of responsibility from page 368. Some "Sensitive artifacts" are described without depiction, but are alloted pages with blank footprints of the omitted images (pages 231-239). "Glossary": pages 351-353. Includes bibliographical references. The twelve essays are interspersed among fourteen thematic "Catalogue" sections.
The legacy of the art and cultural scientist Aby Warburg offers many subjects for reassessment. Almost unknown until now are the artifacts he collected on a journey through the southwest of the US in 1895/96 and donated to the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg (today Museum am Rothenbaum). The results first unfolded in Warburg's famous lecture on the snake ritual of the Hopi (1923). Following Warburg's transdisciplinary approach, this publication examines his guiding principles in assembling his collection as well as his reading of Pueblo art and culture. It pays tribute to the works and their artistic significance and sheds light on the circumstances of acquisition in the sociopolitical environment of the Pueblo communities of the time. The contemporary fascination with the snake ritual is also a topic. Set against this are the previously neglected perspectives and strategies of Pueblo leaders to regain interpretive sovereignty over culturally sensitive content and imagery. Aby Warburg (1866-1929) is considered as the founder of a modern art history oriented towards cultural studies. His research was mainly concerned with the investigation of the afterlife of antiquity in the Renaissance, which he recorded in his iconic Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. Exhibition: Museum am Rothenbaum. Kulturen und Kunste der Welt (MARKK), Hamburg, Germany (04.03.20222 - 08.01.2023).
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.