Enfilade

Attributed to Manuel Chili, known as Caspicara, Four Fates of Man: Death, Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, ca. 1775
(New York: The Hispanic Society of America)

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From the press release (18 May 2022) for the exhibition:

Faith and Fortune: Art across the Global Spanish Empire
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 8 June — 10 October 2022

Curated by Adam Harris Levine, with Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig

This summer, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) presents Faith and Fortune: Art across the Global Spanish Empire, an eye-opening exhibition of sumptuous paintings, maps, textiles, jewels, rare daguerreotypes, and religious objects from Europe, the Americas, and the Philippines from the collection of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library of New York.

Curated by the AGO’s Assistant Curator of European Art, Adam Harris Levine, the exhibition presents artworks by revered and unknown Latin American, Filipino, and Spanish artists and explores the colonial frameworks that shaped their production and reception. A consultation panel of Toronto-based Latinx and Filipinx scholars and artists worked with the curator to help shape an exhibition that both highlights the beauty of these objects and the reality of their creation. Their voices are heard throughout the exhibition as part of the exhibitions extensive audio guide.

For nearly four centuries, between 1492 and 1898, the kings and queens of Spain controlled large parts of the world. Their pursuit of gold, gemstones, and natural resources created an empire that for a time spanned both oceans. Art, books, and religious imagery were a powerful means of unifying their vast and varied empire, and the Spanish empire encouraged artistic production across its territories. Painters, sculptors, printers, and other artisans travelled extensively, creating a rich and complex visual culture.

“These sumptuous and stirring works reveal cross-cultural exchange—of ideas, of people, of materials—on a global scale. As historic as these artworks were, embedded in their creation are issues that we continue to confront today: the persistence of anti-Indigenous stereotypes, of racial categories, of flawed legal systems, of pollution from resource extraction. In them, and in the context of their making, we better understand our present condition,” says Levine. “These four centuries of art provide a unique perspective on the lasting legacies of colonization and the role of art.”

Filipino-Canadian artist and designer Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig joins the exhibition as guest curator, overseeing the installation of 15 never before exhibited daguerreotypes from the Philippines, dating from ca. 1840–45. Only recently rediscovered, these significant images offer says Pantig “a rare window into the Philippines at a critical time of political and cultural change and an opportunity for those in the Filipinx community to reclaim these images as our own and to consider how colonialism has shaped how we see our history.”

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Anonymous Spanish artist, The Silver Mine at Potosí, ca. 1585, watercolor on parchment, 28 × 22 cm (New York: The Hispanic Society of America). More information is available here»

Organized chronologically, the exhibition begins with the earliest episode of colonization: Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. Illustrating the formation of the Empire is a selection of ceramics, textiles, and religious paintings—objects all made in Spain with materials from the Americas and Asia, reflecting the dominant styles and techniques of European art. A gold pendant in the shape of a centaur made of sapphires, rubies, and pearls (ca. 1580–1620) and a disc of gold bullion, dated 1622, from the Thomson Collection of European Art are just a few of the glittering examples of the gold trade that fueled the Spanish Empire’s expansion.

Impassioned representations of Saint Jerome (1600) and Saint Sebastian (1603–07) by El Greco and Alonso Vázquez highlight a section dedicated to Catholic imagery and its role in empire building. From Peru, a processional shield from ca. 1620–50 depicting the Virgin Mary and the Nativity, of oil on copper and wrought iron, demonstrates the local adoption of and market for religious icons.

Anonymous Spanish artist, The Silver Mine at Potosí, ca. 1585, watercolor on parchment, 28 × 22 cm (New York: The Hispanic Society of America). More information is available here»

Sculpture, ranging from gilded wooden figures to a lacquered portable writing desk and elaborately carved wooden boxes, features prominently in the exhibition. Ecuadorean Indigenous sculptor Manuel Chili’s striking series of four wood carvings The Fates of Man (ca. 1775) presents in feverish detail the potential rewards and pains of the afterlife.

A section dedicated to seafaring and map-making features some of the oldest objects in the exhibition, including a series of five charts illustrating the Atlantic Ocean from Iceland to Port of Good Hope from 1558. Diego Velázquez’s full sized portrait of Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares (1625–26), is one of many works showcasing the Spanish Empire at the height of its power in the 17th century.

Pottery and lacquer ware from Mexico and Columbia exemplify how Indigenous artisans working for settler patrons and drawing upon examples and artistic traditions imported from across Asia, the Americas, and Europe created their own recognizable styles. These works reflect the importance of the Spanish trade routes between Acapulco and Manila.

The exhibition concludes with a selection of never-before exhibited daguerreotypes dating from ca. 1840–45. An early form of photography using silvered copper plates, daguerreotypes were popular in the mid-19th century. Guest curated by Filipino-Canadian artist and designer Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig, these images offer stunning views of Manila and its surroundings, including the Marikina River and Laguna province, and are thought to be the work of Jules Alphonse Eugene Itier (1802–1877), a French government official whose career took him around the world.

Programming Highlights

• On Saturday, June 11, exhibition curators Adam Harris Levine and Tahnee Ann Macabali Pantig join interpretive planner Gillian McIntyre for a free conversation about Faith and Fortune: Art across the Global Spanish Empire. For more details and to register, visit ago.ca/events/faith-and-fortune-curators-talk.

• Celebrate the sounds of the Americas and Philippines! Beginning Friday, June 17 and continuing on select Fridays through July, Small World Music presents free live musical performances by Latinx and Filipinx performers in Walker Court from 5 to 9pm.

• On Thursday, June 23 at 4pm, exhibition curator Adam Harris Levine joins Florina Capistrano-Baker, a curator and expert on the art history of the Philippines, in conversation. The two will highlight objects from Faith and Fortune: Art across the Global Spanish Empire, addressing the Philippines’ era of Spanish colonisation and local hybrid art forms. Free via Zoom. For more details about this free Zoom talk, visit ago.ca/events.

• Opening on 25 June 2022, on level 1 of the AGO, also from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, comes Treasures of Ancient Spain, a selection of 28 objects from three important periods in Spanish history, dating as far back as 2500 BCE. Featuring, metalwork, rare Bell Beaker ceramics, Celtic jewellery, and marble sculpture, these artifacts attest to Spain’s long history as a home to many cultures. Archer M. Huntington, the founder of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library was a passionate collector of ancient Spanish artifacts, funding numerous archeological digs.

Now on view at the Nelson-Atkins:

Paintings from South America: The Thoma Collection, 1600–1800
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 12 February — 4 September 2022

Organized by the Thoma Foundation

Unidentified artist (Perú), The Mystical Winepress, 18th century, oil and gold on canvas, 49 × 43 inches (Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, 2019.71; photo by Jamie Stukenberg).

This exhibition presents fifteen works made by artists in present-day Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia during Spanish colonial rule. One of the largest and longest-lasting European empires, the Spanish realms spanned from South Asia to South America and lasted nearly 500 years.  Spanish South American art is a dynamic, unique combination of styles and influences from visiting Italian artists and imported European prototypes translated and adapted by local hands. The works on view represent primarily Roman Catholic subjects.  Paintings and sculptures adorned churches and convents across Spanish America, but most of the paintings in this exhibition originally hung in private homes where they both gave pleasure and invited contemplation and prayer. The works belong to the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, which is committed to promoting the art of the Spanish Americas through scholarship and exhibition of its extensive collection from South America and the Caribbean.