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Abstract
The Bermuda triangle of the title refers to the magical space between three Madrid museums— El Prado, the Museum of the Americas, and the National Museum of Anthropology—in which the coloniality of Spanish society disappears, in the contemporary moment as much as in the historical narrative. This article asks: where is Latin America— specifically, Latin American art—in Spain? It sets out the discursive maneuvers that have obscured that coloniality in art and in the daily activities that allow Spaniards to enjoy Andean potatoes in their tortillas and Mayan chocolate with their churros, without savoring the American bitterness that is their basic ingredient.
Notes
Notes
1 The Escorial could well serve as another node on a future version of this map of historic forgetting. The palace, located in the suburbs of Madrid, does not inhabit the same symbolic space as the institutions I discuss in this essay (though it does indeed occupy an important symbolic space). Note that the translation of “Museo de América” in the singular to Museum of the Americas in the plural is not accurate, although it obeys current usage of “America” to refer only to the United States.
2 The Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier used the term “trucos de prestidigitación” (meaning “conjuring tricks” or “sleight of hand”) in the prologue to his 1949 novel El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this World).
3 On the modern colonial system, see, for example: Aníbal Quijano, “Colonialidad, modernidad/racionalidad,” Perú Indígena, vol. 13, 29 (1991): 11–29; Aníbal Quijano y Immanuel Wallerstein, “Americanity as a Concept, or the Americas in the Modern World-System,” International Journal of Social Sciences, 134: 583–91; Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
4 Cocoa production does not lend itself to the large-scale agricultural system used on the plantations; see Emma Robertson, Chocolate, Women and Empire: A Social and Cultural History (Manchester: Princeton University Press, 2009).
5 It may seem wrongful and even absurd for a citizen of the US—a country with a neo-colonial history of violence against the countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean—to adopt a distinctly critical stance against Spain. In response to such concerns, I would suggest that there is a strong historical and ideological connection between the different colonial manoeuvres, and that an in-depth analysis is crucial if we want to begin to understand what happened here. I have also written about the complex and contradictory power of colonial American discourse during the years following the 1898 Spanish-American War, at the beginning of the large-scale expansion into the Western hemisphere. See Esther Gabara, “Cannon and Camera—Photography and Colonialism in the Americas,” ELN 44, no. 2 (2006): 45–64.
6 This list cannot be comprehensive, as all museums are contemporary institutions—including historical museums like the Prado. These institutions define themselves and propose a historical narrative through the process of selecting and exhibiting specific pieces from their vast collections.
7 Translator’s note: Unless otherwise indicated, all quotes translated in this text are my own.
“Pero no abandonó la energía y el carácter emprendedor que le había distinguido en el campo de batalla y dirigió sus esfuerzos a la evangelización de los indígenas americanos.” To see the original Spanish text in context, visit: https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/don-tiburcio-de-redin/e184d5a4-c35e-4cde-bfd9-6f23cf353c23.
8 Translator’s note: criollo refers to Spaniards born in the Americas, who were excluded from the highest ranks of the colonial government reserved for those born on the Iberian Peninsula.
9 Translator’s note: the term búcaro was used to refer to earthenware vessels that were used to cool water and appreciated for their aroma and taste.
10 Natacha Seseña, “El búcaro de Las Meninas,” Velázquez y el arte de su tiempo, V Jornadas de Arte (Madrid: Editorial Alpuerto, 1990), 39.
11 Cited in Seseña, “El búcaro de Las Meninas,” 41.
Translation quoted from: Madame d’Aulnoy, The Lady's Travels into Spain, Or, A Genuine Relation of the Religion, Laws, Commerce, Customs, and Manners of that Country (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1808), 329.
12 Gustavo Curiel, “El ajuar doméstico del tornaviaje,” México en el mundo de las colecciones de arte, Vol. 1 (México: UNAM, Consejo nacional para la cultura y las artes, 1994), 159.
13 Beatriz Rovira y Felipe Gaitán, “Los búcaros: De las Indias para el mundo,” Canto Rodado 5 (2010): 53.
14 The lack of artworks that would increase the visibility of the colonization of the Americas is even more striking if we compare the Prado with its European counterparts, for instance, the British Museum and the Louvre. Museums are notorious for showcasing the spoils of foreign exploits, but in the case of the Prado, it is as if Spain had never had any commercial contact with the colonies, and as if it had never mined Latin America for goods or human beings. I am not highlighting this difference between colonial strategies in order to support or reinvent the black legend that portrays Spanish colonization as being more savage than its British counterpart. Rather, my main goal here is to investigate the political and cultural strategies that continue to exist in the former colonial metropolis.
15 Enconchados are paintings encrusted with iridescent shells and mother-of-pearl.
16 Elizabeth P. Benson, et al. Retratos: 2,000 years of Latin American portraits. (San Antonio, Tex.; Washington, D.C.; New York; New Haven: San Antonio Museum of Art; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; El Museo del Barrio; Yale University Press, 2004), 115.
17 María Paz Cabello Carro, “La formación de las colecciones americanas en España: Evolución de los criterios,” Anales del Museo de América, No. 9 (2001): 315.
18 Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 10.
19 http://mnantropologia.mcu.es/informacion.html. Author’s note: since the original publication of this essay in Spanish, the Museum has altered its mission statement to diminish that emphasis on otherness. The new text reads: “to offer you a global vision of the cultures and different peoples of the world so that you can appreciate how that cultural diversity enriches us [nos enriquece]” Accessed June 5, 2020. Despite revisions, the stated mission of the display of diversity still employs the language of Spanish wealth. As with the Prado, this analysis of display was based on visits in 2009–2010.
20 Preface, Frutas y castas ilustradas, coord. Pilar Romero de Tejada (Madrid: National Anthropological Museum/Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, 2003).
22 Elisa Vargaslugo tells us that “the story behind the Museo de América in Spain is somewhat confusing and rife with the failures caused by the political circumstances and the civil war,” Introduction to México en el mundo de as las colecciones de arte, vol. 3 (Mexico, D.F.: El Gobierno de la República, 1994), 4.
23 Romero de Tejada, Frutas y castas ilustradas, 15.
24 Curiel, “El ajuar doméstico del tornaviaje,” 157.
25 It is important to note here that the texts in the Museo de América speak of “the conquest” (la conquista) rather than “discovery” of the Americas.
26 See footnote 3: Quijano, Wallerstein and Mignolo.
27 Curiel, “El ajuar doméstico del tornaviaje,” 180.
28 Fernando Checa Cremades, “La época de Carlos V. Colecciones e inventarios de la casa de Austria,” in Los inventarios de Carlos V y la familia imperial/The Inventories of Charles V and the Imperial Family, vol. 1, ed. Checa Cremades (Madrid: Fernando Villaverde, 2010), 21.
29 Checa Cremades, “La época de Carlos V,” 40; James S. Amelang, “The New World in the Old? The Absence of Empire in Early Modern Madrid,” CHE, LXXXII (2008): 153. The central argument put forward by Amelang differs considerably from my line of reasoning here.
30 John Reader, Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009), 68.
31 Artigrama, no. 24 (2009): 44.
32 See Christian F. Feest, “The Collecting of American Indian Artifacts,” in America in European Consciousness, 1493–1750, ed. Karen Kupperman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 341.
33 Interview on “Hoy es Arte” with Carlos Urroz from Tuesday, 14 February 2012: http://www.hoyesarte.com/entrevistas/gestores/11052-entrevista-con-carlos-urroz-director-de-arco-madrid-.html
34 For example, “Santander Universities” is an initiative which encompasses grants and promotes Spanish language learning, educational programmes, relationships between university and companies, new technologies and research programmes (http://www.santander.com). The story of the well-known chocolate brand “Carlos V” is also worthy of note here: the company originally hailing from Mexico was known in the post-revolutionary and nationalist era as “Fábrica de chocolates La Azteca” [La Azteca Chocolate Factory] and now belongs to the multinational Nestlé corporation.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Esther Gabara
First published in Spanish as “El triángulo museológico de las Bermudas: El Prado, el Museo de América y el Museo Nacional de Antropología,” in Revista Sur/Versión. Investigación y Creación de América Latina y el Caribe vol. 2 (2013): 166–174.