Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the ways in which knowledge about the Pre-Columbian past has been constructed in museum displays in the US. By looking at contemporary exhibits of Pre-Columbian collections, the paper explores how different settings and contexts of space transform objects’ meanings and values.

Paper long abstract:

During the twentieth century, the showcase of Pre-Columbian objects as artworks in US museums has transformed the ways in which museum audiences experience and understand the Pre-Columbian past. This paper examines the ways in which Pre-Columbian objects' meanings and functions have been influenced by the settings and contexts of space in which they have been displayed. By looking at the particular case of the Robert Woods Bliss collection of Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, the paper explores how the aesthetic arrangement of these artefacts have contributed to produce a particular understanding and vision of Pre-Columbian cultures and societies. Exhibited in modern settings and displayed inside glass cases, with hardly any contextual information, only brief label descriptions, here Pre-Columbian objects are widely admired for their aesthetic value, high quality materials and individual attributes. Most significantly perhaps, when the same objects are exhibited in different contexts, for example Natural History Museums, they remain capable of communicating and producing different stories and interpretations of Pre-Columbian cultures and societies.