Colonial Art from Latin America - Processes of Reciprocal Appropriation

Previously shown only in isolation within the permanent collection, the objects can now be presented together for the first time. Further, the Ethnologisches Museum was able to make purchases especially selected for this new presentation.

The art works of the Colonial period highlight the reciprocal appropriation of cultures: Inca shirts with silk embroidery in European style, Indian-looking Madonnas, Mexican family trees fusing autochthonous and European pictorial traditions, or images of the Holy Mary in traditional Aztec feather work. The complexity and special form of these objects from the 16th to 19th centuries bears witness to a long and still ongoing dynamic process of mutual influence, to the point of direct usage and transformation of foreign customs into one's own culture.