VASE LECTURES

Colonial Crossings: Inter-Imperial Artistic Exchange in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

Ananda Cohen-Aponte will explore the trafficking of portraits, talismanic objects, albums and numismatics that put the Andes, the Caribbean, and North America into dynamic contact at the twilight of the 18^th century. Through close analysis of archival descriptions of lost objects in concert with extant artworks, the talk will demonstrate the entangled visual worlds of the colonial Americas during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.

About the artist

An Associate Professor of History of Art at Cornell University, Dr. Ananda Cohen-Aponte specializes in the visual culture of pre-Hispanic and colonial Latin America. Her research centers on issues of racial formation, cross-cultural exchange, historicity and coloniality in the visual and material culture of the Andes. Her research also attends to legacies of colonialism in contemporary Latinx art.

She is author of Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes (University of Texas Press, 2016). Cohen-Aponte served as editor and primary author of the book Pintura colonial cusqueña: el esplendor del arte en los Andes/Paintings of Colonial Cusco: Artistic Splendor in the Andes, published as separate Spanish and English-language editions by Haynanka Ediciones in 2015. Her new book project, Insurgent Imaginaries: The Art of Rebellion in the Colonial Andes, considers the role of visual culture in both quotidian and spectacular acts of resistance within the context of anti-colonial uprisings of the late eighteenth century.

Cohen-Aponte, who received her Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center, was a Getty Scholar for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Website: anandacohenaponte.com
Cornell bio: arthistory.cornell.edu/ananda-cohen-aponte

2025-2026 Visiting Artists