A vessel with a fanged human head emerging from a potato body appears ready to scuttle off its shelf. It’s one of many ceramic containers from the ancient Andean region of South America on display in the installation Containing the Divine: Peru.
“Everything has an energy, an animated force,” says New York-based Peruvian artist Ana de Orbegoso. “Yes, I see a sweet potato, but what goes through my mind is I immediately think of it moving.”
Stirrup-spout bottle with manioc form. Moche artist(s); North Coast, Peru, A.D. 600–800. Ceramic and slip, H. 12 1/2 × W. 8 1/2 × D. 12 1/2 in. (31.8 × 21.6 × 31.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Cummings, 1964 (64.228.57). Prov.: Bruno J. Wassermann, Buenos Aires, 1938–54; Nathan Cummings, Chicago, 1954–64
De Orbegoso’s work has been informed, in great part, by Peruvian traditional cultural values and aesthetics: “My intention is to bring history to the present, bringing it out from the bookshelves, refreshing it, reinforcing identity in order to keep on the process of transcending.” In her series “Urban Virgins,” de Orbegoso replaces the classical European subjects in religious paintings with images of present-day Peruvian women. Another of her projects takes the huaco, a term for ceramic spouted vessels made by ancient Indigenous American artists, and replaces the portrait face with an image of a living person, or a mirror so that the viewer of the piece can see themselves.
I invited her to The Met to see the installation and meet with curators Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama and Joanne Pillsbury. This interview is excerpted from their discussion about history, identity, and how ancient ceramics are reclaimed and reimagined in de Orbegoso’s own work.
What drew you specifically to Moche portrait vessels?
Ana de Orbegoso:
The fact that they have a face! I come from photography so, of course, portraits are something that attract me. Seeing these hyperrealistic faces is stunning. I love any kind of expression. To see something so real, it grabs me because I want to know who they were or to know more about the life behind the object.
Sometimes we see ceramics, or we see other artworks, and we don’t connect with them. But I wanted to be sure that people were connecting with the life that was behind the pieces. And so my work has been focused on reclaiming history and memory, reimagining both pre-Columbian ceramics and colonial paintings, creating a new iconography with present-day meanings and signifiers.
Bottle with portrait head. Moche artist(s); North Coast, Peru, A.D. 500-800. Ceramic and slips, H. 10 3/8 × W. 6 3/8 × D. 7 in. (26.4 × 16.2 × 17.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1882 (82.1.28). Prov.: Hon. Richard Gibbs Collection, Peru, 1875–79; Henry G. Marquand, New York, 1880–82
Why do you think a broader public should care about the past?
De Orbegoso:
We carry history in ourselves and we have to discover it. And that exploring through art is what I have wanted to do to discover myself and to pass the message that without history, we would be nobody. We have an incredible family album behind us that is our history and it’s what gives us identity. So if we wouldn't have history, I imagine an empty photo album.
To Peruvians, especially, I like to explain that without history, we wouldn’t have the incredible food that we have. Because we all know how true that is! Knowing your history is knowing your own strengths. When we reconstruct the history of our community, we rebuild our own personal history.
How did you begin your portrait series?
De Orbegoso:
In my series “So what do we do with our history?” I took out the face from the huaco vessel for anybody to be able to mirror in it in order to connect on a personal level. I am very interested in Peruvian iconography, because I use it to send other messages.
From de Orbegoso’s “So what do we do with our history?” 2015. Images courtesy the artist © Ana de Orbegoso
The huaco is such an iconic piece. Every Peruvian would know what a portrait vessel is. And it hadn’t been used in art in what I call the “right” way, because I wanted to talk about identity, to question identity, and to find identity through it. Not just a replica, but to really question through a contemporary lens because I wanted people to connect with the meaning of history through the piece.
The first integration that I did was a man who had a fantastic smile that you just couldn’t look away from. As if to say: “History can be wonderful. And I am part of history.”
Speaking a little bit about the interpenetration of the past and the future, you’ve written, “Culture transcends through us. If it remains static, it disappears.” What are some of the ways you think culture can avoid stasis and remain active in everyday life?
De Orbegoso:
Every country that has a past is so privileged that they already made it. They have an incredible foundation that comes with so much knowledge that can help us go through the present. Everything that we’re proud of is actually our history. Yes, of course there have been mistakes. But the lesson that is left is all these incredible expressions. How wonderful that we don’t have to start from zero!
“When we reconstruct the history of our community, we rebuild our own personal history.” – Ana de Orbegoso
Art is such a strong tool to learn and to communicate—art should be part of any kind of education. The teachers should be artists themselves. Because it’s the language that most encloses all our emotions. All our senses move around when we see art. I don’t see education without art. My history teacher used to make us act a bit, so there was interaction with the material. And, with that interaction, you became part of it. You take it more personally. History is there with anything that we do.
For the workshops that I do for kids, I created this illustration of huacos that’s a colorful Instagram filter. If kids come to see the huacos in the gallery they aren’t as colorful, but in the app you can see in the filter it’s as it should be. People love to interact and they do it with their phones. Their phones act as a bridge, in this case, to history.
Find the filter on Instagram @anadeorbegoso
How does it feel seeing ancient Andean objects on display in a museum here in New York City?
De Orbegoso:
The energy that you find in a museum is really magical. I see this display of Peruvian vessels at The Met and I want more. I want to see all the sides of the pieces. I want to have an interaction with the pieces in some way. That definitely transports me to ancient times. It’s exciting to see how close the world is. That’s something that I love about museums, that they bring the world closer.
Marquee: Ana de Orbegoso visiting Containing the Divine: Peru. Photo by Mandy Kritzeck
