ICR doctoral student, Maria Silva, co-curates "Alters for the dead, Vows of the living" at Krannert Art Museum

October - December 2005
by:

ALTARS FOR THE DEAD, VOWS OF THE LIVING
Altares para los Muertos, votos para los vivos

October 1 through December 31, 2005

Sunday October 30- 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Day of the Dead altar, will be finished with members of the local Mexican community. Latin American dences performed by Ritmo y Sabor.

A bilingual English-Spanish exhibit, combining Retablo and Ex-Voto Mexican paintings from the XIX and XX century with two contemporary altars, including one for the Day of the Dead.


Retablos | Altares | Ex-votos
Three popular religious-artistic traditions from Latin America bring the worlds of the living, the dead, and the saints into a single whole.

Death in Latin America, as everywhere, is associated with rituals. The Day of the Dead, a traditional festival to welcome the souls of the dead back to this world, combines elements of the Catholic All Souls’ Day and pre-Hispanic beliefs. In Mexico, the festival is an exuberant celebration
with music, preparation of altars, figures of skeletons, incense, food, flowers, and photographs.

Retablos are part of a more exclusively Catholic tradition. These devotional paintings from the 19th century depict Christ, the Virgin, and saints and are used in home shrines.

The untrained painters of retablos sought to produce images that were readily identifiable and lovingly decorated in order to stimulate devotion.

Ex-voto (Latin: "from a vow") paintings are offered to Jesus, the Virgin, or a saint, in thanks for an answered prayer, and are displayed in churches. In the 19th and 20th centuries, these pictures were painted on tin and other materials. The ex-voto painting tradition survives to the present day.

In the altars, retablos, and ex-votos, we see individuals striving to relate to a reality that transcends yet embraces present life.

Maria Isabel Silva and Bernard Cesarone, Guest Curators