Denver Art Museum - 2006 Mayer Center Symposium

"Asia and Spanish America: Trans-Pacific Artistic & Cultural Exchange"

Friday, November 3, 2006,
9:00 am - 5:00 pm,
followed by a cocktail reception
Saturday, November 4, 2006,
9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Lectures will be held at the Denver Athletic Club, 1325 Glenarm Place,
Denver CO 80204

Join us at the Denver Art Museum on Friday evening for a cocktail
reception and viewing of "Japanese Art from the Colorado Collection of
Kimiko and John Powers" in the newly opened Hamilton Building. The Asian
and Spanish Colonial Galleries will be open for viewing on the 4th and 5th
floors of the North Building.

About the Symposium:

During the sixteenth century, Spain established an extensive connection
with Asia through its port at Manila in the Philippines. Asian merchants
brought their trade goods to Manila where they were purchased by Spanish
traders. Loaded onto galleon ships, they made the journey across the
Pacific to Mexico and Spanish America.

A large number of goods were shipped to Spain, but many objects remained
in the Americas where they inspired local artists in many media. Asian
immigrants, including artists, also made the long journey to the Americas
in search of lucrative professions. A major industry for export goods to
Europe and the Americas developed in Asia - Chinese porcelains, Japanese
lacquers, printed cottons from India, and ivory carvings of Christian
saints made in China, Goa, and the Philippines. In exchange, silver
coinage produced in Spanish America was sent to Asia, where it was used as
currency.

Many Asian objects bought to Spanish America still exist in Mexican and
Peruvian collections. Evidence of the impact of Asian art on the arts of
the Americas is seen in such objects as folding screens, enconchado
paintings with shell inlay, and the blue-and-white majolica pottery of
Puebla, Mexico. Portraits from Latin America reflect the influence of
Asian textiles on fashion, and embroidered shawls and ikat weavings made
in Latin America reveal the extent of cultural exchange.

The 2006 Mayer Center Symposium brings together an international group of
scholars of Asian and Spanish Colonial arts to address the topic from both
perspectives. It hopes to expand scholarship by introducing Asian art to
Latin American specialists, and vice versa. It will also appeal to new
fields of scholarship that focus on interdisciplinary, multicultural, and
global studies. The proceedings of the symposium will be published at a
future date.

The Speakers:

Gauvin Bailey (Boston College)
The Influence of Asian Art in the Spanish and Portuguese Americas.

Clara Bargellini (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
Asia at the Spanish Missions of Northern New Spain.

Roxanna M. Brown (Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum, Bangkok University,
Thailand)
Shipwreck. Evidence for the China-Manila Ceramics Trade.

Gustavo Curiel (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
Asian Motifs in the Decorative Arts of Viceregal Mexico.

Abby Sue Fisher (Keweenaw National Historic Park, Michigan)
Trade Textiles - Asia and Spanish America.

Evelyn Hu-Dehart (Brown University)
Asian Diaspora in Spanish America.

Hiroyuki Kano (Doshisha University, Kyoto)
Namban - Japanese Screen Paintings of Europeans.

George Kuwayama (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
Chinese Porcelain in Viceregal Mexico.

Meiko Nagashima (Kyoto National Museum)
Japanese Lacquers Exported to Spanish America and Spain.

Sonia Ocana (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico)
Use of Japanese Ornamental Motifs in New Spanish Enconchado (Shell-Inlay)
Painting.

Jorge Rivas (Fundación Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela)
Asian Taste in Latin American Spanish Colonial Furniture.

Etsuko Rodriguez (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
Early Manila Galleon Trade: Merchants' Network and the Market in New Spain.

Sofia Sanabrais (City University of New York)
The Globalization of Taste: Japanese and New Spanish Folding Screens.

Marjorie Trusted (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)
Baroque Ivory Sculpture in Viceregal America and the Philippines.

For More Information

For details on the 2006 Mayer Center Symposium,
including a registration form, please go to
http://exhibits.denverartmuseum.org/asianart/calendar_f.html,
OR contact the New World Department Events line
at 720-913-0156 or email
mayercenterdenverartmuseum.org; OR contact
Douglas Wagner, Asian Art Department at
720-913-0041 or email dwagnerdenverartmuseum.org

Presented by the Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and
Spanish Colonial Art at the Denver Art Museum, the Asian Art Department
William Sharpless Jackson Jr. Endowment Fund for Curator's Circle, and the
Denver Art Museum.

--
Elizabeth M. Owen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Asian Art History
School of Art & Art History
University of Denver
2121 E. Asbury Avenue
Denver, CO 80208
(303) 871-4138
(303) 871-4112 fax
eowendu.edu