TEOLOGÍA DE LA REPRODUCCIÓN. ALEGORÍA MORAL, ELEGÍA ARTÍSTICA Y SÁTIRA DEL POPULISMO EN LA AUTORA DE LAS MENINAS, DE ERENESTO CABALLERO (2017)

La autora de Las Meninas, de Ernesto Caballero (2017), presenta un escenario improbable pero verosímil: tras la llegada al poder de una coalición política, se acuerda la venta de patrimonio para hacer frente a la crisis económica. Ángela, una monja especializada en la copia de cuadros, recibe el encargo de elaborar la réplica de Las Meninas que se expondrá en el Prado tras la venta del original. Este argumento le permite al autor plantear una honda reflexión no exenta de ironía y mordacidad. Este artículo explora cómo el dramaturgo conjuga las tres matrices discursivas de la obra: por un lado, una alegoría moral sobre el pecado de la vanidad; por otro, una elegía por el arte ante los disparatados derroteros por los que hoy discurre; finalmente, una sátira sobre el populismo como proyecto político. Estos ingredientes conforman una “fábula distópica” que ha de contarse entre las mejores piezas de Caballero. Abstract: La autora de Las Meninas, by Ernesto Caballero (2017), offers an improbable but plausible future: after gaining power, a political coalition agrees to sell some cultural patrimony as a means to face an economic meltdown in the country. Ángela, a nun who is specialized in duplicating paintings, is in charge of replicating Las Meninas, which is going to be exhibited at the Prado Museum after the original has been sold. The play is, therefore, a deep, ironic and mordant reflection, and the article explores how the playwright combines the three discursive genres of this play: a moral allegory on vanity, an elegy for the ludicrous direction that art has taken nowadays, and a satire on populism as a political project. These elements produce a “dystopic fabula” which should be considered one of Caballero’s best plays.

Rare Objects and the Rhapsodic World of Yoruba Elite Art Collectors: Preliminary Notes

This paper is a preliminary note on the data collected during my research on archives in Nigeria in the summer of 2013. While I examined both public and private archives, I found the private archives particularly those in the cities in southwestern Nigeria to be surprisingly rich in objects that are rare, new, and sometimes with unusual subject matter. The archives belong to notable elite collectors who are the de facto shapers of the art industry in Nigeria today. Their archives are worth art-historlcal study in terms of the richness of the col­lectlon, and because the sites are the contemporary repositories of not only an­clent art but also traditional, modern and contemporary works of art. From the range and volume of the collections, the archives seem to have taken over from the government-owned museums. The shift is very interesting to study as one traces the trajectory of art acquisition and accumulation from pre-modern to modern institutions. The preliminary submission here is that Nigerian elite art collectors are lnterveners and game changers. Their intervention could be seen in two ways: First, as rescuers of disappearing cultures and by the same plat­form they are pivotal to reclamation of cultural patrimony. Secondly, as game changers and transformative agencies the elite collectors become culture bro­kers who work assiduously to stem 'culture flight' and 'heritage drain'. The plat­forms they offer grant them boasting rights as art connoisseurs and promotes the affirmation of elite power within the matrix of a post-colonial nation state.

Regulatory acts for the cultural patrimony preservation of Porto Murtinho, MS, in the context of university network of the Latin american Integration Route (UniRila) and the Bioceanic Corridor

This work is part of the activities that were agreed within the scope of the University Network of the Latin American Route (UniRila), and was developed specifically as a proposal for Dossier II. This research is also linked to the development of the Master Plan of Porto Murtinho-MS, specifically the axis of Cultural Historical Heritage, the result of an inter-institutional partnership. In this context, the aim is to analyze current normative acts for the preservation of historical and cultural heritage in the three administrative spheres, using the qualitative approach methodology with bibliographic and documentary research. One of the great challenges of the Bioceanic Route Integration will be the efficient updating of policies for the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage, in order to maintain the cultural integrity of the local population. Thus, it is understood the need to stimulate local development, through cultural and social capital, aiming at a participatory democracy. Heritage education is part of this context as an instrument for disseminating information and knowledge, and when supported by public and private agents and social actors, they are certainly decisive in the struggle arising from issues related to cultural vulnerability.

Museum Collections and Their Legacies

Museums continue to be cast as anachronistic—‘weary’, ‘tired’, and ‘out of touch’—trophy houses embedded in the colonial past, with object collections considered hollow remnants of that past. This article contests this notion and reveals how museums have emerged over the past fifty years as active field sites where Indigenous communities, scholars, artists, and artisans in the Pacific have been and are engaging with their cultural patrimony. This approach has seen new meanings and readings of, and new life breathed into, these collections in ways never imagined or anticipated. The museum is a space where differing epistemologies have engaged, conflicted, and negotiated, enabling the reshaping and recovery of meanings within the things held in collections; a process that sits at the centre of the current decolonizing discourse. For Indigenous people, these museum holdings are a unique and tangible link to the past that can perhaps be found only in memory. This article provides a nuanced understanding of the complexities associated with museum collections and their enduring legacies realized through the engagement of Indigenous people with their cultural patrimony.

Pedro Salina’s Library New Findings Following the Discovery of the Entry File if its Deposit into the IES Cervantes

This article informs about the discovery in the Biblioteca Nacional de España of a book list that summarises of Pedro Salinas’ library at the start of Spanish civil war, and some letters which explain what happened with this library after it was confiscated. This recent finding provides valuable information regarding roles played by institutions in charge of protecting Spanish cultural patrimony and give it back to its rightful owners, provides a better understanding of what happened with Pedro Salina’s library during the war, and completes prior studies by confirming which books were part of it.

Romanticism in Mexico

During the nineteenth century, romanticism became central to how Mexicans engaged in practices of self-definition. Romanticism in Mexico was an intellectual and artistic movement that was at once autonomous and connected to transcultural influences. As evidenced by the works of historians and literary scholars, as well as novelists, politicians, poets, and antiquarians from the period, romanticism was gendered in terms of women’s participation and representation, and in themes such as love, family, virtue, domesticity, and eroticism. Women were critical to the transmission of romanticism in quotidian practices of attending theater and opera, hosting salons, and instilling appreciation for poetry and the natural world in their families and their communities. Romanticism also exercised a profound influence on how Mexicans thought about ethnicity, race, and nationalism. In their quest for a unique national identity, Mexican intellectuals looked to the indigenous past and celebrated mestizaje as the foundation of Mexico’s cultural patrimony, even as they persisted in exclusionary practices toward their indigenous and casta compatriots. Romanticism offers a fruitful area to reevaluate well-studied themes of Mexican history, particularly its complex relationship with nationalism, modernization, gender, and the politics of ethnicity and race.

Nazi Looting of Art

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were not only the most systematic mass murderers in history, they were also history’s greatest thieves. Beginning with the duress sales of Jewish property starting in 1933 and escalating to expropriation as part of emigration in Austria to outright seizure in conquered nations during World War II, the Nazis carried out a plundering program that extended to millions of cultural objects. The Allied response began during the war: after concerned academics (such as the Harvard Defense Group) alerted military and civilian leaders to the dangers to Europe’s cultural patrimony, the United States created the Roberts Commission to study the issue, which in turn led to the creation of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, where officers accompanied the invading armies and tried to mitigate the damage from combat, as well as track the looted works. The Monuments officers undertook a massive, international restitution effort, but could not complete the task: there is still much “unfinished business” from this era. The literature on Nazi plundering and Allied restitution is rich and varied: from the vivid accounts of the Monuments officers to the technical and occasionally arcane scholarly interventions (e.g., how to interpret labels on the backs of paintings). The opening of archives and the continued discovery of Nazi-looted works in museums and private collections has served as an impetus for continued research, and an international effort promises to yield further discoveries. This article is divided into twenty-two sections, with the entries in chronological order. It bears mentioning that there are four sections where the historiography is particularly rich: (1) plunder and restitution in France, (2) the literature on “degenerate art,” (3) Nazi-looted art and the law, and (4) anthologies. The first is likely due to the cultural riches of France, as well as the accessibility of archives. The scholarship on “degenerate art” took off in the late 1980s, with the observance of the fifty-year anniversary of the Aktion in 1987, and the public revelation of the Gurlitt cache in 2013 contributed to this impetus (Hildebrand Gurlitt had been one of the four official dealers of the purged art). Due to the emergence of myriad restitution cases starting in the early 2000s, the legal aspects of looting and recovery have attracted intense scholarly interest. And the international nature of the research, which has involved scholars from both North America and Europe, has led to many conferences, which in turn yielded a rich array of anthologies.

Identitatea rromilor. Patrimoniul cultural material și imaterial al etniei rrome

"The material and immaterial cultural patrimony of Rroma ethnicity This study aims to address a series of cultural values representative of the Rroma from the perspective of traditional trades, inherited or practiced and which define their ethnic identity. It is too unlikely to know exactly who and what the Rroma were due to the lack of sources and moreover, written studies about this ethnic group were based more on elements related to folklore or legends. Starting from the premise that, from a historical and conceptual point of view, the Rroma people have not yet defined themselves as identity anymore, for a long time the monopoly on the definition of Rroma belonged to the majority, the study aims to illustrate those cultural elements in within the community that were and are still in the contemporary period a landmark of unconditional self-definition of the Rroma. The indicators to which we refer as individuals in those situations in which we are exposed to name and qualify a group, are not only those of certified historical nature through writings, they are also established in the context of how the group expresses its material cultural heritage and immaterial that it represents. Although this concept promotes the need to know the identity of groups, the Rroma ethnic group has difficulties in terms of the identity culture displayed and the way it is perceived by society. The Rroma minority, indeed, encounters difficulties from a socio-economic point of view, the vast majority of society referring to this deficit in the situations of labeling and defining the Rroma identity. However, the Rroma ethnicity can also be defined on the basis of specific values attested by ethnicity, cultural values such as trades, crafts and customs, dress, spoken language and human values such as unity, solidarity, trust and faith. Thus, the study itself aims to illustrate those unknown or less known elements about the Rroma, exposing those cultural-traditional values that have the role of defining the identity of the Rroma not according to the socio-educational level (misery, poverty, deprived people of scruples, minority, etc.) but depending on the way in which the Rroma, both at individual and group level, relate to values of heritage elements when they define themselves. (trades practiced, Rroma peoples, elements specific to Rroma peoples) The aim of the study will most likely generate results in terms of reducing unfounded perceptions about Rroma tradition and identity and at the same time combating prejudices against this ethnic minority. Keywords: culture, Rroma, Rroma nations, identity, craftsmen "

El Baile Del Pueblo

In this final chapter, the author provides a macro perspective of the música típica genre as a form of national music, focusing on the challenges musicians face as performers of a popular commercial music that is, at the same time, firmly rooted in folkloric traditions to which Panamanians remain deeply attached. Through a series of case studies, the author shows that the “pull” of tradition is a constant in música típica musicians’ lives. This is never more evident than in ongoing discussions regarding what to call this music and the challenge of sorting out the demands of baile performance as distinguished from shows patronized by concertgoers, or even viewed by a nation-wide television audience. This sense of música típica’s unchanging nature also lies at the heart of the perplexity and frustration felt by performers when they consider the unrivalled popularity música típica enjoys in Panama even as it is virtually unknown beyond the country’s borders. Finally, when compared to most other forms of popular music in Panama, the sense of national pride provoked by música típica’s connection to folkloric music and the fact that it is embraced by so many Panamanians means that musicians are praised for their contributions to modernizing the genre even as they run the risk of being accused of undermining what is regarded by many Panamanians as the nation’s cultural patrimony.