Splendorous Messaging, Political Negotiation and Material Exchange in the New World

Explore colorful feather mosaics produced in 16th-century Mexico and learn the consequential political negotiations these exquisite works generated. The New World was home to several brilliant civilizations with remarkable visual and material cultures the likes Europeans had never seen before 1500. The first objects to arrive to Europe from the mainland in 1520 were a lavish political gift offered by the Mexica/Aztec emperor Montezuma II comprising works made of gold, silver, precious stone, and mosaic objects composed in resplendent feathers.

About the speaker: Guzmán's work examines the socio-political value of visual culture in Pre-Columbian and colonial societies within the Americas and is a specialist in the visual manifestation of indigenous governance and political sovereignty of Middle American civilizations.