Latin American Art Arrives at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid

Latin American Art Arrives at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid: SEMANA Speaks with the Exhibition Curator
Adrián Contreras Guerrero shared details about the 36 wooden trays featured in the Madrid exhibition.

The Americas, as a result of its numerous exchanges with diverse cultures, including European ones, have produced artistic expressions that stand out in the history of art.

In line with this, many techniques brought from Europe were adopted by the continent and adapted to the materials available in this part of the world.

On May 21, an exhibition titled "New Spanish Wooden Trays: A Cultural Crossroads" opened at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid, a space of great importance for the research and dissemination of Latin American heritage.

Adrián Contreras Guerrero, the exhibition's curator, spoke exclusively with SEMANA, sharing details and explaining the significance of the exhibition held in Europe.

Contreras Guerrero is Spanish and a tenured professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Granada. He holds a Master's degree in Advanced Museum Studies and Historical and Artistic Heritage. He also has degrees in Fine Arts and Art History, and possesses extensive knowledge of American art.

Contreras's research on Latin American artistic heritage has established him as a key promoter of research and dissemination for art from this part of the world.

He asserts that he is "convinced that the decorative arts best reflect the blending of cultures that occurred after the conquest of America, primarily due to their more utilitarian and domestic nature."

Speaking of the exhibition, he says that in the displayed wooden trays, "we see scenes from Greco-Roman mythology alongside Chinese weeping willows, all painted by Indigenous artists using an ancestral Mesoamerican technique," which is the origin of the name "New Spanish Wooden Trays: A Cultural Crossroads."

He specifies that “there is no doubt that the conquest and colonization of America represented a drastic break with the natural evolution of the various cultures existing on the continent, but it is no less true that, in the field of decorative arts, this cultural clash produced fascinating hybrid artifacts.”

The museum exhibition included 36 trays. Nineteen of them date from the 17th and 18th centuries; the other nine are pieces made in the 20th century.

When Contreras is asked about the significance of this exhibition, he says that it “marks two important milestones in the study of viceregal decorative arts: firstly, it is the first time a monographic exhibition has been dedicated to New Spanish trays, and secondly, it is also the first time that all 14 lacquered trays belonging to the Museum of the Americas can be seen together in their entirety and simultaneously, making it the most important collection of this type of object in the world given the quantity, quality, and provenance of its pieces.”