|
Indepth Arts News:
"Images for Eternity: MEXICAN TOMB FIGURES"
2001-01-22 until 2001-02-25
Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery
Keene, NH,
USA United States of America
Ceramic figures from ancient tombs in West Mexico will be exhibited from Saturday, Jan. 20, through Sunday, Feb. 25, at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College. The Images for Eternity exhibit will include a short video about understanding sculpture through movement, created by Patricia Pedroza, a KSC faculty member visiting from Mexico. The exhibit will be complemented by an installation about the Day of the Dead, a Mexican celebration of the lives of friends and relatives, who have died during the year.
Both exhibits will open with a reception on Friday, Jan. 19, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Thorne gallery. The reception will feature a walk through the exhibit with Stephen L. Whittington, director of the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine, Orono. The Hudson Museum organized the Images for Eternity exhibit from its collection of West Mexican shaft-tomb figures.
Pedroza, who has a longstanding interest in the pre-Columbian arts of her native Mexico, will make an opening-night presentation, addressing the interpretation of human-figure poses depicted on the tomb sculptures. Interpretations of the figures offer an engaging link between the mysteries of the their origins and contemporary culture, explains Pedroza, who teaches in the Spanish and Women's Studies departments.
Friends of the Thorne will present educational tours for regional school children Feb. 5-21. Three time slots are available each day: 9-10:15 a.m.; 10:45 a.m.-noon; and 12:30-1:45 p.m. The program includes a 30-minute guided tour of the gallery and a 30-minute art activity, which is age specific for elementary and middle school students. Older groups may forgo the art activity in favor of an extended gallery visit. The program is free but pre-registration is necessary. Call Meg Kidd at 358-2719.
The Images for Eternity exhibit consists of ceramic figures, dated between 200 B.C. and A.D. 300, looted throughout the centuries from shaft tombs in the West Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacán. The sculptures depict a variety of subjects such as a mother holding a child, musicians blowing pan-pipes, and a warrior wearing a horned headdress.
Until recently, archaeologists did little work in the region and concentrated their efforts on more familiar cultures of Mesoamerica, such as the Maya and Aztec, writes Whittington in his recently published exhibit guide.
The Day of the Dead exhibit will feature a reconstructed traditional ofrenda or altar offering used during the annual celebration. The ritual feast of feeding the dead for their journey into the afterlife is speculated to have originated approximately 1000 B.C. as an affirmation of the life cycle. Today's colorful celebration, which combines ancient Amerindian and Catholic Christian beliefs, provides a rich link to ancient West Mexican art and culture, explains Meg Kidd, coordinator of the Friends of the Thorne education program.
Located on Wyman Way, the gallery is open from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday through Wednesday and noon to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday. The gallery is open only when Keene State College is in session. It is accessible to people with disabilities. For information, call 603-358-2720.
Related Links:
| | 
|
