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Episode 2: Lucía Abramovich Sánchez image

Episode 2: Lucía Abramovich Sánchez

S1 E2 · Breaking the Frame
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Breaking the Frame is a podcast featuring interviews that explore how museums and the people who work in them shape American history and culture — past and present. We start off our interviews this season by talking with Dr. Lucía Abramovich Sánchez, the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and an expert on Latin American art.

To keep up with Breaking the Frame, subscribe or visit our website at zencastr.com/Breaking-the-Frame.

More information about the artworks and topics discussed in this episode:

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Transcript

Introduction to 'Breaking the Frame' and Hosts

00:00:00
Speaker
Bye!
00:00:13
Speaker
This is Breaking the Frame. A podcast featuring interviews that explore how museums and the people who work in them shape American history and culture. Past and present.

Introduction of Guest: Dr. Lucia Abramovich Sanchez

00:00:25
Speaker
I'm Emily Casey, Hall Assistant Professor of American Art and Culture at the University of Kansas. And I'm Ruthie Dibble, the Robert N. Shapiro Curator of American Decorative Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
00:00:40
Speaker
Our guest today is Dr. Lucia Abramovich Sanchez, Carolyn and Peter Lynch, Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Lucia's Expertise and New Role at MFA Boston

00:00:52
Speaker
We are so excited to be talking to Lucia today because she is an expert in Latin American art, and she curates decorative arts, which is a combination that will only show up in this one interview on this season. Lucia also has a distinguished career researching, writing, and curating Arts of the Americas, and she recently started an exciting new role at the MFA.
00:01:17
Speaker
So Lucia, we would love if you can introduce yourself and tell listeners a little bit more about what you do. Yeah, thanks. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation to come on your podcast.

Overview of Lucia's Responsibilities at MFA Boston

00:01:29
Speaker
ah So I, at the MFA Boston, um where I've been for about six months, I'm responsible for the collection of American decorative arts and sculpture that comprises about 16,000 works ah that are mostly from North America, although there's a ah large number of of objects in that collection that pertain to Latin America.
00:01:52
Speaker
I share that responsibility with my colleague Noni Gadsden, our senior curator of ah decorative arts and sculpture in the art of the Americas department. And other than being custodians and caretakers of that collection, we also create permanent installations and temporary

Lucia's Mandate on Hemispheric View of the Americas

00:02:09
Speaker
exhibitions.
00:02:09
Speaker
that showcase the collection of American decorative arts and sculpture alongside other works maybe of contemporary art and then in in in both our cases but really my mandate is to look at the Americas truly hemispherically and apply my knowledge of Latin American art in the interpretation and hopefully also in the acquisitions in our in our department.
00:02:33
Speaker
Thank you so much for that introduction, Lucia. We're really excited to kind of break down some of the pieces of this work you're doing, both how it is incorporated into the larger project of the um galleries at MFA Boston, as well as you know you were mentioning your hemispheric approach to curating the arts of the Americas. So I think we're going to have a lot to talk about over the next little while.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, and we'll kind of proceed in three parts. One is kind of thinking about your origins and where your approach to security comes from. The other is what you're up to right now. And the last will be kind of where you're hoping to be in the future.
00:03:16
Speaker
Sounds good.

Introduction of Graduate Student Assistants

00:03:17
Speaker
We also have with us our graduate production assistant Kat White and Jillian Nichols and Abigail Usry, who are graduate students in Emily's American Museum Seminar at the University of Kansas. They assisted us in preparing for this interview and will be asking some of the questions. Kat, Jillian and Abigail, can you introduce yourselves and say hello?
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, so hi, I'm Kat, working on getting my PhD at KU, working as the production assistant, as was noted. I am super excited to be sitting in on these conversations. As someone who is especially fascinated by how art historians and museums as institutions are turning toward podcasting and multimedia to engage with viewers in a new way and with visitors in a new way. So really excited to hear what we talk about today.
00:04:06
Speaker
Hi, I'm Abigail. I'm a master's student in art history at KU as well. And I'm just super excited to be joined to hear your insights on the field of Latin American art history and curation. Hi, I'm Jillian Nichols, and I'm also an MA student at KU. And I'm also really excited to get to hear all your insights on especially like display and curation and the decorative in Latin American arts. Thank you so much.
00:04:31
Speaker
And our work on this podcast could not happen without the contributions of these graduate students this semester. So we are really happy to have them as a part of the recording today.

Lucia's Journey to Becoming a Curator

00:04:44
Speaker
Lucia, we wanted to start with a first question that goes back to the beginning of your career. So we're wondering if you could take us back to that period or moment in your life when you decided that you wanted to be a museum curator.
00:04:59
Speaker
And we're wondering, like where were you in that part of your life? And how did you come to that decision and why? Sure. So I i was an anthropology and Latin American studies major at the College of William & Mary. And my junior year, spring semester, I opted to go to Mexico, to Pueblo, Mexico, for a semester abroad.
00:05:23
Speaker
That decision was sort of last minute. i I wanted to go abroad. I didn't really have the funds to go to Europe, but I also you know had never been to Mexico. So it was kind of a combination of all those things led me to go to the University of the Americas. um It's actually in Cholula, which is ah ah sort of a suburb of Pueblo, Mexico and central Mexico.
00:05:44
Speaker
And while I was there, I visited tons of museums. I had family friends in Mexico City that I would visit often on the weekends. And I went to the National Museum of Anthropology and History for the first time. I had loved museums from before. I grew up outside of Washington, D.C. and remember fondly like the first time I ever went to the National Gallery, the first time I went to, well, the National Gallery is the one that kind of stands out the most.
00:06:11
Speaker
um but also the the freer and just experiencing those free museums was really, really important to me growing up. But the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City is a museum that was built in the mid 20th century with the cultures of Mexico pre-Hispanic invasion and colonization. So all of the art is kind of placed in this there's no hierarchy basically like it's placed in a way where you see the Mexica or Aztec cultures alongside the West Mexican cultures the Maya they're all on the same floor and they're giving this these cultures a precedence over like what I always saw is like the
00:06:54
Speaker
most quote unquote important thing, like Western European art in a lot of the other institutions that I had been to previously. And it was a revelation. Even the our architecture was influenced by pre-Hispanic cultures. And so um reading about that museum, I just got hooked and I was like, you can do this in museum context. This is so cool. So that led me on a path where I, while I was in Mexico, I started like trying to find out what to do over the summer to like continue to feed this obsession.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I cold emailed Dumbarton Oaks, which is a museum and research library in DC that has a collection of Art of the Americas before 1500, also known as pre-Columbian art. And they agreed to bring me on two to three days a week as an intern in their um in their museum working with the curators of the pre-Columbian collection.
00:07:43
Speaker
And they happened to be unpacking that collection from offsite storage back into like a new storage facility that they had just opened that summer. um So I was like 20 opening obsidian mirrors, like opening these serpent um sculptures from central Mexico.
00:08:01
Speaker
And and i would you know by that point, I was absolutely you know ready to to, I wanted to do this as my career. And the folks at Dunburn Oaks were so kind and generous. They were really the ideal people to bring me into the field to because they continue to be mentors for me, the people that I met that summer.

Defining Latin American Art and Inclusivity

00:08:21
Speaker
ah So that was also really important, having that support early on.
00:08:26
Speaker
That's such an amazing story and I really like the part where, you know, this exceptional opportunity to get to be handling objects in your first internship role um and how that must have informed your interest in preparation as a curator or even just your interest in material and decorative art um because it, you know, oftentimes this is all stuff that's happening in books or maybe you get to see it through glass. So to have that experience of really getting to handle and be up close to objects as part of that formation must have been really special. Totally. And it's something that I think differentiates like academia sometimes from museum work, where we have to handle objects as part of our as part of our work. um We need to understand like technical information about objects oftentimes, especially as I'm learning at the MFA, which is the first institution I worked at that has a conservation department.
00:09:24
Speaker
you know, they're throwing terms at me that sometimes I'm like, I don't know that, but like I kind of understand through um years of just like looking at objects. um So I like that so much about curating that the breadth of knowledge you have to know, but also it's about like the objects themselves.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's reminding me, I was talking to Pat Kane from Yale last week about silver and like kind of becoming a connoisseur of silver. And I asked her like, how do you know if there's something off or you you think you're holding a fake? And she was like, oh, it's just like a little heavier than it should be. And I was like, that's really helpful. I'm not there yet.
00:10:06
Speaker
um Just that like knowledge of how how a teaspoon is supposed to like rest in your hands when you're like at eighteen hundred a teaspoon is so specific. It takes so long. i still and And I also like this about museum work. And maybe this is like our generation. But I'm constantly questioning my like expertise. you know i i don't I feel like I'm always a student and like needing to continue to absorb information about objects. Because even if I feel like I might know something about like the weight of a spoon, I'm like, have I seen enough spoons? I don't know. I don't know. i like And um that that curiosity is something that I love.
00:10:45
Speaker
That's so great. We want to kind of continue learning a little bit more about you know how your museum and academic experiences sort of led you in the direction you went. So we're going to have Abigail and Jillian ask ah the next question, kind of taking us there.
00:11:03
Speaker
So your main focus is Latin American art, and you've kind of already begun to speak on your development of expertise in this field. I'd love to hear more about the journey of your experience growing in that process. And then I'd also like you to kind of explain your definition of the field of Latin American art history as well, or art curation.
00:11:26
Speaker
Sure. I guess we'll start with the definition because I will forget otherwise. Latin American art to me for many years was quite siloed in the sense that I never considered anything north of the kind of southern part, the southwestern part of the US as factoring into that definition. um It was purely and exclusively art created in Latin America by Latin American people. And that shifted for me when I moved to Texas to work at the San Antonio Museum of Art and became way more

Transition from San Antonio to MFA Boston

00:12:00
Speaker
connected with the community of Chicanx, Chicano, Chicana, Mexican-American folks that were making art and had been writing about art for decades before I had gotten to to Texas. And it really opened my mind and sort of prepared me in a way for the work that I i want to do at the MFA Boston. Currently, and I can talk a little bit more about that,
00:12:21
Speaker
shift later but my current definition of Latin American art is much more expansive. So it can include people living in any corner of the world who are of Latin American heritage, people who are part of the Latin American diaspora and maybe a different way than that maybe their parents moved to a different place and they are deeply connected to Latin America because of their their family background. So it's just much much broader. And then I think another important element is the inclusion of Caribbean and like Lusophone places in in Latin America as well, and thinking about
00:12:59
Speaker
maybe these are not Spanish-speaking countries and in places in in Latin America, but that shouldn't exclude them from the conversation, which I think has happened. um Especially, I mean, you see it in museum contexts a lot. There's not a lot of representation of Caribbean or Lucifer-speaking in countries like Brazil represented in those collections. So, ah yes, I think like now I think about it more broadly.
00:13:23
Speaker
What is Lusophone? Oh, Lusophone is like um Portuguese speaking countries. I had a coffee with a colleague who is Kate Verdean the other day, and they are also like a Portuguese former Portuguese colony. So they, they started using this term and I was like, Lusophone, I'm going to start using that too. but it's not very like obvious. Could you say a little bit about, ah you were talking about kind of the geographic breadth you understand with Latin American art. um When you think about this really capacious category of art history, how are you thinking about that in terms of time?
00:13:59
Speaker
earlier you were talking about arts of the Americas before 1500 as one kind of portion of the field, but then there's obviously also colonial and and modern. So is there a ah sort of temporal way that you're thinking about the field of Latin American art? That's such a great question.
00:14:19
Speaker
I am constantly marred in nomenclature. It's one of my obsessions and I'm always playing with it sometimes to the great confusion of my colleagues when I like throw in a new way to describe something. um So I think that is directly related to how I grapple with this. Like I don't really have a good, a sense of like how to chronologically talk about Latin American art, especially because When it's pre, you know, the Spanish invasion, we're talking about thousands of years of history, it wasn't Latin America. It was, you know, some some folks use the term abiayala, which is like an indigenous term to describe the the region where these civilizations existed and exist in Latin America today, but it's not really Latin America. And I think that timeframe actually is the most complex to really include or or talk about in
00:15:15
Speaker
in terms of Latin American art history. It's sometimes based in anthropology departments because of the history of collecting and studying objects and and cultural belongings from these cultures. But now there's been much more art historical research included and in like studies of Mexica, Inca, Maya civilization. So um that's still a big question mark. It's, I think, more straightforward when you're thinking about any moment after you know the late 15th, early 16th century.
00:15:45
Speaker
when European empires start invading and taking tracks of land and controlling um and influencing the art-making practices in those regions. It's interesting how you talked about your first encounter was with pre-Columbian art, and i'm i'm now I'm curious too about like how you became interested in post-contact art too. so Yeah, it's a complicated story. um I think firstly, the interest in the pre-Hispanic cultures and Latin America generally was like born out of my desire to feel more connected to Latin America as a Latin American person. I was born in Argentina. My parents are Argentinian. My stepfather's from Peru.
00:16:29
Speaker
And my family was not very assimilating into US culture ever in the time that we lived all together in the US. My father moved back to Argentina when I was young, and then my parents left the US when I was in college. So I just wanted something to kind of hold onto. And I think becoming more aware of Latin America, being with other Latino, Latina students in college, and then having my parents living there, just sort of propelled me into like wanting to pursue this. So there's that personal side. And then um shifting from pre-Hispanic to colonial period, after college, I managed to um get a position as like a curatorial assistant at the National Museum of the American Indian um at the Smithsonian Institution. I was working with a curator whom I had met at Dumbarton Oaks. Basically working as like a translator, an interpreter, because this curator wasn't very comfortable with their English.
00:17:25
Speaker
And it was, you know, we're working on an exhibition on the Inca road system. I was like sort of starting to straddle like the colonial period and pre-Hispanic cultures because the Inca, you know, were pervasive on both sides of that time when the Spanish invaded what is now Peru. And as I continued in that position, I started learning more about the ways that Inca culture was imbued in colonial ah colonial and Indian culture. And it it just got me really curious.
00:17:54
Speaker
And when I applied to grad school, my advisors encouraged that. And so I ended up writing my master's thesis on a 16th century manuscript, or really early 17th century, rather, manuscript that shows like the history of the dynastic Inca rulers through the perspective of a Spanish friar, Martina Mudoa. And from there it was like, I just, it snowballed after that. and So Lucia, you recently you mentioned you recently made this big move from the San Antonio Museum of Art in Texas to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. And I know that also came with a kind of shift in focus to a certain degree in terms of the work you're doing. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how some of your curatorial responsibilities or areas of focus have changed and what what has stayed the same.

Museum Culture and Audience Engagement Differences

00:18:47
Speaker
between the work you were doing in San Antonio and what you're finding now in Boston. Yeah it it was a big shift because in San Antonio I was working with a very large collection of almost 10,000 objects of Latin American art that spanned from the Olmecs which was like you know 3,000 years ago ah to modern and contemporary art which I was working on really with our curators of modern and contemporary art because my comfort level wasn't at the point where I felt
00:19:18
Speaker
I could really manage that large of a collection. This is an issue in museums. I think when we see curators responsible for such a large chronology and geography, it's really hard to to really focus because you have to be taking care of objects that have issues popping up and I experienced that in San Antonio, but one great thing, one of the many great things from being there was that they have one of the largest, if not the largest collection of Latin American popular art um or also mainly known as folk art in the country. And so I was working a lot with that collection because I was instructed to reinstall that gallery when I arrived and it just opened a lot of avenues of research for me that I felt like needed to be explored and I wanted to advocate for them and
00:20:06
Speaker
the larger like museum world and the academic community. And San Antonio was a great place to do that because we had so many objects, but it was so many objects that it was hard to, again, focus and feel like you were giving the necessary care to every um every piece. And so in Boston, um not only is it a deck arts focused position, so that means that while I I still work with the curators of paintings and I do work with some 2D art. It's more so on a consulting basis or kind of a case-by-case basis. The objects that I'm really working with and I don't know if advocating for is the right term but like in the weeds with our 3D collection
00:20:47
Speaker
And like I mentioned earlier, it's almost all works from North America. The collection of Latin American art at the MFA that falls under deck arts, it actually measures at about 3,000 objects. However, a lot of that are small pieces that pertain to the the collection of art of the Americas pre-1500. So beads, a lot of that stuff counts as a singular object. So yeah, the scale is really different. you know I'm learning a lot about a small group of objects.
00:21:17
Speaker
and trying to expand that through a variety of ways. And then also have those objects be in more conversation with all the other objects in Art of the Americas. So that's a different challenge than in San Antonio where ah there's a wing of Latin American art and there's not necessarily a need to have like all this dialogue between the other ah collections.
00:21:39
Speaker
That's so interesting thinking about the infrastructure of these different museums and how that informs um the shape of the collections, but also the role of the collections and the larger story of the museum. um And it kind of leads me to another thing I was curious about, which is if you have felt a shift in terms of doing this kind of work in Texas versus Massachusetts. I mean, you've talked about the idea of diaspora or you know Latin American communities that are in all different parts of the United States or the world, but I'm sure there are maybe some differences that come in terms of museum culture or audience around um doing the kind of curatorial work you're engaged with in these different regions, and if you could talk about that.
00:22:27
Speaker
Sure. I'll first say that one of the biggest differences is going from a mid-sized institution to a large institution. um I'll just kind of table that because I think that issue is more museum-wide. It's not necessarily like talking about Texas versus New England, but it certainly like impacts some things.

Bridging Decorative Arts: Latin America and North America

00:22:47
Speaker
So I think the biggest thing is, you know, in San Antonio, the population is over 60% Mexican-American.
00:22:54
Speaker
Some folks define themselves as Mexican-American, some folks define themselves as Chicano, Chicana, Chicanx. There's a lot of different designations within that umbrella. But the important thing to note is that it is a city that is predominantly Mexican-American influenced by Mexican culture. And what goes along with that is that we have a lot of people of color from that community. So it's ah it's more diverse in that aspect. you know The Latinidad is very much felt everywhere in San Antonio. And so um as the curator of Latin American art,
00:23:26
Speaker
At SAMA, I was constantly wanting to find points of connection between the community and the installations and the projects ah that were more temporary. So for the popular art collection, lots of folks have the objects that we were putting on display in their homes, maybe in different versions, maybe newer versions, because ah the SAMA collection has a lot of historic ah popular art from the 20s, 30s.
00:23:55
Speaker
um So it was really wonderful to see people feel like this personal connection with the work. I don't think that that is directly applicable to the MFA Boston experience.
00:24:08
Speaker
Firstly, ah from what I can gather the little statistics that I know about the demographics of Boston and and Massachusetts in general, I think only like 12% of um the Massachusetts general population is um like auto defined as Hispanic or Latino, Latina, Latinx.
00:24:30
Speaker
um So that's a much smaller number than um then in ah South Texas, of course. But on the other side, I have sensed that um this area is much more international. So we have folks from a lot of different places around the world um and a lot of different backgrounds.
00:24:50
Speaker
um So that translates to the interpretation and the display being more universal, you know um finding connection points more broadly and speaking to an audience that you cannot just assume has a background um with ah with these objects. Maybe it's the very first time that they're seeing objects like this.
00:25:13
Speaker
And so that you know that's an interesting interesting challenge for for label writing and also working with a um within a larger institution. I'll just say this like at SAMMA we were a small team so I could come up with things quickly with like education and and I'm still learning the ropes at the MFA because it's a bigger place so I'm still trying to figure out how to do that interpretive side as nimbly as I was doing and in in San Antonio.
00:25:39
Speaker
Thank you so much for that. And I think, you know, one of the things we're really interested in on breaking the frame is helping listeners see how some of these elements of the structure of the museum, the way different departments work together, the size of the museum impacts what you see in the galleries or what kind of programs are available. Yeah. And Lucia, I'm thinking about this shift in the number and like types of objects that you're responsible for in your position at the MFA. And I had a question for you specifically about your responsibility for decorative arts and sculpture of the Americas.
00:26:17
Speaker
I have a sense that decorative arts sits within art of Latin America a little bit differently than how it sits within art of North America. And I'm wondering what are the like possibilities and challenges of bridging those two you know adjacent but different areas of study in the world of decorative arts. This is something that I feel like I think about all the time.
00:26:46
Speaker
I had a feeling. i I honestly, sometimes I'm like, how did I end up here? This is amazing, but I've never considered myself a decorative arts and sculpture specialist, mainly because in the world of Latin American art history,
00:27:04
Speaker
there really isn't the same kind of specialization. like you you I think this is what you're getting at, Ruthie, is like there's not the same framework for learning about this material in Latin American art. There's still a lot of gaps in the Latin American art world, I think, in terms of our training. like The one I mentioned, popular art, is just so understudied in our field.
00:27:27
Speaker
And to that same point I think a lot of the historic ah materials I'm thinking like ceramics leather work to a lesser degree silver furniture, all of these objects that are designated as decorative arts in our in North America, don't have the same kind of highlighting, I guess, um in in Latin American art departments in the US or in Latin America. One kind of like anecdote that I thought about with this question is in Buenos Aires and Argentina, there's a museum of decorative arts in the capital, and it's notorious for having only European
00:28:04
Speaker
decorative arts in its collection from stately homes in Argentina. If you want to see decorative arts and sculpture from Argentina that that are historic, you go to the colonial Latin American Art Museum and they have all sorts of things and that we would designate as like part of that category. So that's so interesting to me that like it's not considered as part of like it wouldn't be considered as part of a decorative arts collection. um But going back to your question, which I have not forgotten Ruthie, I'm sorry,
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, it was a question kind of like, I guess I'm curious about how, are there things that we can learn and benefit from from both sides of the equation from like decorative arts and Latin American studies, decorative arts in North American studies, and like combine into a superpower and that is your unique like responsibility right now? Like, yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker
I want to shout out um just thinking about this. there's There are folks in our field that have been doing this work for a long time. The person I think of immediately is Jorge Rivas at the Denver Art Museum, who's been a specialist in furniture and in design in Latin America for a long time. um And we also have folks that have studied a lot of silver work and and and other options like Quieros, like Tom Cummins at Harvard, Cristina Eteras, who's a wonderful silver specialist and and focuses on Latin American silver. So there are some folks that have been doing groundwork for a long time. But for me, I think the the creation of that superpower that you speak of would be to combine all of the amazing technical knowledge that I feel that the decorative arts
00:29:40
Speaker
training gives you here and in the US, and I i presume in other places where deck arts are prevalent, um like wood grain, the you know hallmarks of of silver, joinery, all of these interesting ah things, and also, of course, the study of high fire, low fire ceramics, and then applying those um those skills to case studies in Latin America.
00:30:04
Speaker
would be a dream, you know, looking at a collection of Latin American ceramics and then looking at, you know, how different qualities of firing, different clay from different parts of of the world or even of like this region and could apply to those. I mean, that would be transformative, I think, in in this context, having more technical studies. And it is happening. I mean, I also should mention, like, last year, the Victoria and Albert Museum did a whole symposium on lacquerware in Latin America.
00:30:34
Speaker
um and there's two different kinds. There's like the Mexican lacquerware and then the South American lacquerware based mostly in Colombia. ah So this work is happening, but I would love to see more of it. I also like, I think that there's so much for scholars of North American decorates to learn from the way that objects are studied in Latin America too, like and in Latin American studies, like from my sense of it is that there's really smart work being done on like space and ritual and and social activities like around what we would call decorative arts objects um in a way that I think sometimes decorative arts in this country are not always like activated with such a like sense like a rich sense of the people and kind of political activities around them. So I don't know. I i love the idea of like kind of borrowing the strengths of both fields.
00:31:33
Speaker
Totally. And it's it's time, I think, for like a new path also for, I think, both um areas of study, where historical context, a visual analysis breeds something new. I don't know what that is exactly. I'm hoping it's just like an expansion of understanding.

Supporting Ongoing Projects at MFA Boston

00:31:54
Speaker
um like The one example I think about is like tona la ceramics from West Mexico.
00:32:01
Speaker
um they have Pre-Hispanic precedent, they were made in the 18th century for export to Spain. um And then there was like a dormant period. And then in the 20th century, they like exploded. And I would love to see, not necessarily like a i mean a chronology, but like looking at those objects like in those individual moments, what they looked like, and trying to pull it all together.
00:32:22
Speaker
Um, so a technical analysis, a context, but also looking at the shifts compared to what was going on politically, socially, um, in, in West Mexico at the time. It's like something I, yeah I've been thinking about. That's super interesting. Just take, you know, just take a few days and just do that. Just knock that out. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get on it right now.
00:32:43
Speaker
kind of Continuing along in this vein, you know I think for Ruthie and me, one of the things that's really special about MFA Boston is it's a museum that has been exhibiting the art of the Americas together collectively for a long time. It was one of the earliest museums to incorporate arts from different parts of the Americas into a sort of single gallery presentation before a lot of other places were doing that. um And so it's interesting kind of this conversation about how can we be bringing some of the strengths of
00:33:18
Speaker
these different fields together in terms of understanding objects and their significance. So I'm wondering now that you're at the MFA Boston, what are you seeing as your role in being part of the kind of continued 21st century efforts to interpret American art and culture in a kind of hemispheric way? Do you see yourself bringing new perspectives to that project?
00:33:43
Speaker
And what are some of the ways that you are kind of building on what's already happening there? I very much see myself as part of the continuance of the practices that they've been trying to implement in the Art of the Americas Department for years now. but Like you mentioned, the hemispheric approach that's been part of that museum's Art of the Americas Department for, you know, I think it started in 1999 and then the opening of the wing in 2010.
00:34:13
Speaker
was like the public expression, you know, of that intention to be hemispheric. And so that really excited me. I mean, that was a huge, huge motivation for me to come to Boston because I remember as a graduate student when that wing opened how inspired I felt that this was the approach they were taking towards Art of the Americas. But I think, especially because I'm so new, I My goal is really to to support the ongoing projects that incorporate Latin American art or kind of weave Latin American art in with Art of of North America and then offer support in my areas of expertise. So flesh out the knowledge of certain objects that maybe we don't have the full picture of yet.
00:34:59
Speaker
find objects in storage that may have been misattributed because they're somewhat obscure and so that they weren't attributed to Latin America where they should have been. um And that's that's really what my focus is right now. I just think that the work that they're doing is um is powerful and I want to offer my area of experience and knowledge on Latin America to help bolster that at this point.

Exhibition on La Malinche and Reclaiming Her Image

00:35:24
Speaker
Our next question is from Abigail slash Jillian.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yes. So in our background research, we noted that an article by Tomas Ibarro-Frosto titled, Imagining a More Expansive Narrative of American Art from 2005 was pretty fundamental to your approach to curating Latin American art.
00:35:45
Speaker
And in this article, Ibarro Frosto writes, a big question is, how can we imagine a new narrative of American art history that focuses on respect for difference in variation, but at the same time builds conviviality in two-way sharing across social divides? We were especially struck by this quotation and we are wondering, is there an exhibition or installation you've created that you feel especially meets the goals laid out by Ibarro Frosto?
00:36:11
Speaker
Great question. That essay was transformative for me. um Dr. Ibarra Fralto actually is a native of San Antonio, ah which is how I was able to come into knowledge of his work.
00:36:22
Speaker
And regarding that specific question, I personally haven't had the good luck to to tell you about a project that I've um created myself. I don't agree. I don't agree with. um I mean, there's one that I can think of that I presented at SAMMA um that was organized by ah my colleague Victoria Lyle at Denver, at the Denver Art Museum, called Traitor-Survivor Icon, The Legacy of La Malinche. And it's the first one that comes to mind because of the framework and how it applies to Ibarra Frautos, a concept of the expanding understanding of Latino art. Because what ah Victoria and her co-curator Teresita Romo, who's an independent curator and writer based in the Sacramento area,
00:37:11
Speaker
um and also a great Chicana scholar who's been in the mix for decades on the topic of Chicana art. They put together an exhibition on the history of La Malinche, who was, ah she is a very controversial figure in in Mexican and Mexican-American culture.
00:37:26
Speaker
She was an indigenous young girl who was ah kidnapped from her Nahuatl community as a as very young girl and then was brought in as an enslaved person into a Maya community. And after that was given to Hernan Cortes, the Spanish invader of the Mexica capital ten of Tenochtitlan. And she became his interpreter because she was fluent in both ah Maya dialect and in Nahuatl.
00:37:51
Speaker
um and they ended up having a child together. And she did, she was present in a lot of the critical moments that permitted the Spanish to overtake the Mexica empire. And so Chronicles of Britain about her, she appears in a much more negative light in 19th century into 20th century, ah especially like Chicano art of the 20th century is is ah sort of disdainful of her. And so this exhibition was a way to reclaim her as a powerful figure, an empowered figure who ah survived a lot of trauma in her life and is is more of a symbol of empowerment. And they did this through ah showing all the way from Mexica sculpture, central Mexican sculpture, showing like
00:38:37
Speaker
noble women's clothing from before the Spanish invasion to chronicles from the 16th century to 19th century images of her and then into the 20th and 21st century. So like Chicana and Chicano artists responses to her, which was a really powerful thing to be a part of, especially in San Antonio, seeing people's responses to a figure that they were many people were already familiar with and had perhaps a negative idea of. So using a story from Latin American history to change the narrative and using art from every single um century um in which this person existed ah lived their life to tell that

Importance of Collaboration in Curatorial Work

00:39:18
Speaker
story. I love those sorts of shows that that bring in not just historical material, but also um go into the contemporary period and don't leave out the 19th century, which is something that
00:39:29
Speaker
unfortunately happens a lot in Latin American art. That sounds so interesting. Yeah, and that sounds like a fascinating show. And I think what I liked about this quote and sort of how you're describing an exhibition that that you ah sort of connect to it is that there's there's just so many dimensions and layers of thinking about who who are we wanting to put in conversation or what time periods or subfields or communities um So this idea of um conviviality and two-way sharing, I think that's something that American art history broadly is always asking. How do we connect these different cultural and national histories, different art histories, material histories in a way that's not about taking over
00:40:19
Speaker
someone else's history, culture, or area of expertise, but really being in dialogue in ways that are mutually beneficial. So just how you framed that exhibition, the different trajectories it was drawing together, the narratives it made possible for viewers to see, I think gives a sense of of some of the expansive unfolding ways that this kind of approach can offer. to how we're um incorporating arts of the Americas together in museum spaces or in scholarship. And Lucia, thinking of exhibitions you've worked on, we wanted to ask you, and it also relates to your shift to the MFA, um when you're working on a reinstallation or an exhibition, who are your key collaborators in the museum, you know beyond territorial even?
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So like in an ideal situation in which like I'm curating an exhibition and get to tap into all of the different resources at my disposal, which I'm assuming could happen. and I'm not saying like this is ideal a situation, but anyway, so in that in that scenario, I would love to work closely with our learning and community engagement department. I think that is like the number one department that I want to work closely with to create ah projects that have that those aspects that are our visitors can connect deeply with and make sure that that's integrated into the project um from the very beginning. um And that can mean a lot of different things, like there's infrastructure for early childhood or like elementary school age visitors to ah engage with the material in some form.
00:42:08
Speaker
I'm super interested in multi-sensory experiences. This is ah something that I'm increasingly like passionate about in in my curatorial practice. And I love seeing installations and exhibitions that incorporate sound, touch, smell um into into the displays. So I would love to have that as an integral part of any project, big project that I do.
00:42:34
Speaker
and i working on that constantly. And then um of course like with the with the interpretation part of it, our learning and community engagement department is where our interpretive specialists live. So that's like making sure that the um the content of the exhibition is accessible for people of different ah like people who are visually impaired, people who are hearing impaired, and then keeping the language like i'm I'm a big fan of a ah tight 80 word label. So keeping the language concise, maybe having the possibility of a multilingual ah label experience. That's something that I'm very passionate about too. um It looks a little different in Boston than it did in San Antonio, where we were like, Spanish, of course. um Because there's so many other languages that are spoken in the Boston metro area beyond Spanish. ah So I don't know what that would look like.
00:43:26
Speaker
here. But yeah, I think um learning and community engagement. And then, you know, we have a great exhibition design team, too. That's something that's very exciting for me as someone who's always designed their own installations, like begging the preparators and registrars everywhere i've worked to help. I'm like, I can't measure this platform. I have, you know, mistakenly measured ah this a size platform that was not the right size for and and a show. I have done that before. I'll admit to that.
00:43:55
Speaker
So having that, not your fault, that was not your fault. I mean, I did not, you know, I stopped taking math in, in high school. Okay. I made sure that I had all my requirements so that.
00:44:07
Speaker
When I went to college, no more math for me. um so ah So I'm glad that there's people who are much better at like calculating square footage to help with yeah with the design element. That's very exciting. um but yeah um i think that and And of course, conservation. How could I forget?
00:44:26
Speaker
having the ability to look closely at objects, make sure they're in good condition to be shown and then like maybe even discovering new things about them in the process of building an exhibition. That's one of the most exciting things about working at the at the MFA Boston is that we have a team of conservators that um that look at objects and then talk to the curators about their findings as they're assessing and treating objects. You learn about new materials like signatures. I mean they just add to the interpretation so much if you find them in time.
00:44:57
Speaker
so They do. I always feel like, especially for objects where you don't have a maker, where you don't have a known maker, if you can sit with a conservator and unpack every choice, every decision that informed how an object was made, you can understand so much about that person or that group of people without knowing the individual name. So I always feel like conservators are such important collaborators in pulling like the humanity out of objects with lesser known like origin stories. But yeah, that was a very eloquent and important answer because you know curating, it's nothing if not collaborative. Absolutely. I think gone are the days and and good riddance, in my opinion, like where the curator is sitting in their office and like not interacting with anyone and just like it's like the most individualistic experience. Yeah.
00:45:48
Speaker
You know, and it's like curator as celebrity curator as you know this hierarchical like top of the pyramid of hierarchy in an institution. I'm so happy to see that breaking down and and having curators way more in the mix.
00:46:04
Speaker
and collaborating with one another and collaborating with different departments and and being part of a bigger story, a bigger initiative.

Lightning Round: Museum Labels, Acquisitions, Visitor Experiences

00:46:12
Speaker
It's so much better for, I mean, just applying to museums, you know, this is public art history, we're serving a public and I think that collaborative practices is much better for that experience for our public to have a lot of people working on a project on a so on a same kind of tier. We are moving into the last portion of our conversation.
00:46:36
Speaker
And that is going to involve a lightning round, which I'm very excited about, which simply means that Jillian, Abigail, and Kat are going to ask you some questions and we want under one minute answers. So three questions, one minute answers um to kind of take us into the final portion of our interview. So I'm going to turn it over to them to start us off.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah, top of your mind, Lucia, like whatever comes first, just... Yeah. Okay. You can cut me off if I get to, and if i I hope I don't talk too fast. I also am guilty of that. All right. So what are three words that describe your ideal museum label? Oh, that's a great question. I think three words um would be morsel, like a little fun little morsel.
00:47:28
Speaker
um Engaging, fun to read. and accurate.
00:47:42
Speaker
What is a dream acquisition for you at the MFA? Oh this is such a toughie for me. Well I I love silver. ah Silver work is something that I've been attracted to for forever. So I think like a big honking, beautiful, well researched and immaculately provenance piece of silver from probably the colonial Andes, but I wouldn't say no to anything from from colonial Mexico or even a different region. So yeah, a wonderful piece of like 17th or 18th century silver.
00:48:17
Speaker
And last question, if you could ask every visitor to the MFA one feedback question, what would it be? Oh, wow. Okay. One feedback question. I would say, did you experience any moments of awe? And if so, what were they? And it can be like as abstract as, you know, I felt like I was like a princess walking up the stairs and like I was in my own period drama. It doesn't have to be something directly related to a piece of art.

Future Projects and Misconceptions About Curatorial Work

00:48:45
Speaker
But yeah, that would be my question.
00:48:47
Speaker
I love that. I'm obsessed with our lightning round now. Can we do just an hour of lightning round? Oh, God. Actually, they're pretty fun to answer, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now we're we're, you know, almost at the end. So one of the questions, last questions is, what are you most excited to be working on now?
00:49:11
Speaker
Oh, wow. So the thing I'm most excited about is continuing to support the initiatives at the MFA, but also working on my own original exhibition project, which I hope to to do at the MFA, like something significant that's centered around a Latin American topic, maybe precious materials of Latin America.
00:49:35
Speaker
um which was my dissertation topic and you know creating a project with a catalog with a big interpretive arc and public programs. um That would be my my dream and my hope for like the future at the MFA. Maybe a project that would have a big honking piece of Andean silver in it.
00:49:55
Speaker
You read my mind, Emily. We love to see it. Lucia, we have had such a wonderful conversation. I've learned so much about you and your work and your field. And so to end, we just want to ask you, what do you wish people knew about the kind of work that you do? What's something that's maybe a misperception or an invisible part of your work as a curator or a specialist in Latin American art history that you want the world to to know or better understand?
00:50:25
Speaker
That's a great question. I think that I would love the world to know that I think, for the most part, curators are very aware and comfortable with the fact that we are not a universal right answer. or you know when we're When we're curating and creating installations, we understand that everyone is not going to love ah what we put out into the world, we might not be absolutely correct. And we try our very, very best to put out projects that are well researched and that many different eyes have looked over and given their perspective on.
00:51:04
Speaker
But that, you you know, this is an open conversation and we do welcome people's feedback and often do write back to people who will write to, I mean, in every museum I've worked, I've done a lot of like responses to the public writing in and asking targeted questions. And sometimes they're pretty tough questions, you know. um So I want people to know that we're open and I mean, within reason, you know, we don't want to entertain like far flung theories, but we're open and we we welcome a dialogue and I think most curators don't think that what they produce is the absolute truth, but rather a new interpretation of a collection, and a work of art um or a concept that we're exploring in our work.

Reflection on Lucia's Contributions and Impact

00:51:47
Speaker
Thank you so much ah for sharing your knowledge and your experience and your time with us today. This has been super fun. I know I learned a lot.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yes. Thank you, Lucia. Thank you. This is such an honor. And um I'm just so, so honored and pleased to be here with you all.
00:52:13
Speaker
This conversation was just such a great way to kick off the interview portion of the season. Don't you think, Ruthie? Yeah, I mean, Lucia was so full of just fascinating background information about her career and her future plans for the MFA. And Emily, you know, one of the things that we've talked about doing as a way to wrap up each episode is to bring it back to the title of our podcast, Breaking the Frame, and think about one, maybe the most significant way that each interview subject breaks the frame of American art, how it's traditionally framed literally and conceptually.
00:52:53
Speaker
And we were thinking about Lucia and what stood out to me the most was the way that she is curating ah the art of the Americas with this department, a team of people at the MFA, truly hemispherically. um Of course, many art historians and curators engage with the art of the Americas rather than the art of just North America or just the United States.
00:53:19
Speaker
But I think Lucia is one of the the leaders in that, especially from the curatorial side of things, the art of the Americas wing at the MFAs. one of the great examples of thinking about art of the Americas hemispherically, and it's a space where you can move through ah many different cultures and geographies. In terms of her practice of curating hemispherically, I'm really excited to see how she continues to interweave Latin American decorative arts and sculpture into the galleries, and also to lead the way with important acquisitions that
00:53:57
Speaker
I think will represent distinctive cultures, but also have all these fascinating connections across the Americas. So that for me was what stood out the most in her interview. Absolutely, Ruthie. So to our listeners, thanks so much for following along with this episode. Be sure to click the link in the episode description for more on some of the projects that ah Lucia talked about in her conversation with us.
00:54:26
Speaker
And thanks to Kat and our amazing KU students for bringing in smart questions and amazing production. Yes. See you next time. See you next time.