At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Spanish Americas are not taken lightly. And in Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in the Spanish Americas, 1500–1800, the museum’s commitments to collection and research, exhibition and publication shine. Ilona Katzew, the LACMA curator who has led the museum’s efforts in the colonial field, is primary author and editor of this impressive book, a volume featuring exquisite pieces of furniture, paintings by famed artists, stunning metalwork, and finely woven textiles. Some of these creations have long resided at LACMA, but most arrived recently. These new acquisitions—dozens of works collected since the turn of the twenty-first century—form the crux of this book and of a traveling exhibition of the same name, also curated by Katzew.
Katzew describes Archive of the World as an object-based book, designed to invite slow looking. We sense her intentions immediately upon turning its pages....
University of California Press