Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600 | Krannert Art Museum
Source: http://www.kam.illinois.edu/exhibition/fragmented-histories-andean-art-1600
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:16
Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600 | Krannert Art Museum
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Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600
Sculptural vessel, 1000–1375 CE. Lambayeque, North Coast, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection, 1967-29-225.
Model Depicting the Manufacture of Chicha, Lambayeque or Chimu, North Coast, Peru, 1100-1470 CE. Silver-copper alloy. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-304
Drum, Paracas, 900-100 BCE, South Coast, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-28.
Textile Fragment, possibly Chancay, 1100-1470 CE, North-Central Coast, Peru. Cotton. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-281.
Gold Ornament, Wari, 600-1100 CE, North-Central Coast, Peru. Gold alloy. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-460.
Kero, Colonial Inca, 18th c. Wood with lacquer paint. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-403.
Vessel in the form of an arm, Recuay, 200-700 CE, Northern Highlands, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-62.
Exhibition
On View
Aug 28, 2025–Dec 31, 2040
Lower Level | Andean Gallery
Krannert Art Museum’s major reinstallation of its pre-Hispanic Andean arts collection will center past Andean communities as active agents in the creation of their own art histories. Comprising over 700 objects—with 150 currently on view—the museum’s collection includes exquisite textiles, ceramics, and objects fashioned in gold, silver, wood, and shell from cultures that flourished throughout the coastal and highland regions of Peru from 1500 BCE to the Spanish colonial period.
Research and development of Krannert Art Museum’s Andean gallery reinstallation has been generously supported by a grant from the U of I Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Arts and Humanities. Made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom*. Major support provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Climate Initiative. Additional funding provided by the Rosann Gelvin Noel Krannert Art Museum Fund, the M.J. Carragher Memorial Fund, and an Anonymous donor.
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
*Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Growing out of a partnership between Krannert Art Museum, the U of I’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), and the Andean Archaeology research group at University of Illinois Chicago, plans for the reinstallation and development of its conceptual framework have been highly collaborative, taking shape through a series of interdisciplinary workshops involving Andean studies colleagues from across campus, the Midwest, and in Peru. Departing from conventional museum presentations that segregate Andean objects into static silos of culture, period, and region, the new installation will reframe narratives of the Andean past by highlighting the dynamic transcultural networks of knowledge and power through which Andean artists visually animated the natural, spiritual, and political worlds.
Equally important, the presence of Andean archeological holdings in US museums requires us to engage not only the indigenous histories of these objects, but also the fraught histories of their transformation into global commodities looted from ancient burial sites. By tracing the biographies of these objects as fragments abducted from their contexts of origin, the exhibition will explicitly address the destructive histories of looting that brought these objects to Krannert Art Museum.
Interactive Touchscreen and Digital Content: In the Gallery & Beyond
The project also seeks to be reparative by actively engaging with Peruvian colleagues and descendant communities through the co-creation of an interactive digital platform that will allow students, scholars, and communities in Peru to have remote access to the exhibition and to participate in the research and interpretation of their own cultural heritage. The digital content includes interviews with Peruvian collaborators and will be available in the gallery via interactive touchscreens. Presented in Spanish, Quechua, and English, the platform will deepen object biographies with multimedia applications designed to bring past and present Andean voices into conversation.
Offering innovative learning opportunities for campus, public schools, and the growing Latinx communities throughout central Illinois, the reinstallation will invite visitors to ask new questions about the life histories of these objects, and the ethical responsibilities of the museum as we reckon with their displacement, interpretation, and care.
Project Consultants and Collaborators
Mario Advincula
, Project Director of the Vilcashuaman – La Centinela Route of the Qhapac Ñan Project
Carmela Alacron Ledesma
, Co-Director for the Huanangue Valley Archaeology Project
Ocean Arboniés Flores,
Doctoral Student in School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Brian Bauer
, Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
Augusto Bazan
, Director of Research for the Wiese Foundation – El Brujo Archaeological Complex
Joél Becerra Llatas
, Champaign, Illinois
Kainen Bell,
doctoral student, School of Information Sciences, UIUC
Sue Bergh,
Art Historian and Curator of Pre-Columbian collection and Native North American collections, Cleveland Museum of Art
Corey Bowen
, Doctoral Student in Department of Anthropology, UIC
Claudia Brosseder
, Associate Professor of History, UIUC
Sofia Chalcatana
, Associate Professor at the Jesuit University Antonio Ruiz de Montoya
Anita Chan,
Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences and Department of Media and Cinema Studies
Ryan Clasby
, Archeologist and postdoctoral fellow at NAGPRA, University of Illinois
Carolyn Dean,
Distinguished Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz
Rebeca Escamilla
, iSchool, Graduate Research Assistant, UIUC
Anna Maria Escobar
, Professor of Sociolinguistics, UIUC
Edinson Ernesto Delgado Estela,
Director of the Museo Hermogenes Mejía Solf in Jaén, Peru
Victor Font
, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media & Cinema Studies, College of Media, UIUC
Eliana Gamarra Carrillo
, Archeologist, Translator, and Repatriation Specialist
Christine Giuntini
, Conservator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Andrew Hamilton
, Curator of the Arts of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago
Stephanie Hornbeck
, Director, Caryatid Conservation Services, Washington, DC
Henry Marcello Castillo
,
Director of the Arturo Ruiz Estrada Museum of Archaeology, National University José Faustino Sánchez Carrión, in Huacho, Peru
Claudia Martínez Garay
, Contemporary Artist, in Lima, Peru, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Señor Aníbal Matencio Alarcón
, Community Leader, Acotoma, Peru
Carlos Molinas-Vital
, Linguist and Instructor of Quechua at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, UIUC
Andrew Orta
, Professor of Anthropology, UIUC
Yolanda Rivera
, Graduate Research Assistant, iSchool, UIUC
Helaine Silverman,
Professor of Anthropology, UIUC
Richard Sutter
, Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University
Ashley Vance,
Doctoral Student Department of Anthropology, UIC
Rosa Varillias
, Doctoral Student, Department of Anthropology, UIC
Mary Weismantel
, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Chair of Latin American Studies at Northwestern University
Ryan Williams
, School Director and Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Co-curated by Allyson Purpura, Senior Curator and Curator of Global African Art; and Kasia Szremski, Associate Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Related Content
Article
Resource
Andean Featherworks at KAM
Article
Resource
Behind the Scenes: Conservation of Art
Article
Resource
Telling Stories with Seashells: Krannert Art Museum's Malacological Collections
Article
Resource
Lives in Fragments: Reassessing the KAM Andean Collection
Article
Resource
Weaving Object Histories: Andean Textile Research at KAM
Related Events
Jan 28, 5–7 pm
Members’ Preview and Reception | Spring 2026
Jan 29, 5–7 pm
Opening Night at the Museum! | Spring 2026
Feb 20, 2–3:30 pm
Living Legacies | Panel Discussion with Partners in Peru | “Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600”
Mar 17, 10 am–Mar 21, 4 pm
Spring Break at Krannert Art Museum – We’re open!
Apr 16, 5:30–7 pm
Curator Talk | Luis A. Muro Ynoñán | Living Legacies
Skip to main content
Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600
Sculptural vessel, 1000–1375 CE. Lambayeque, North Coast, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection, 1967-29-225.
Model Depicting the Manufacture of Chicha, Lambayeque or Chimu, North Coast, Peru, 1100-1470 CE. Silver-copper alloy. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-304
Drum, Paracas, 900-100 BCE, South Coast, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-28.
Textile Fragment, possibly Chancay, 1100-1470 CE, North-Central Coast, Peru. Cotton. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-281.
Gold Ornament, Wari, 600-1100 CE, North-Central Coast, Peru. Gold alloy. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-460.
Kero, Colonial Inca, 18th c. Wood with lacquer paint. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-403.
Vessel in the form of an arm, Recuay, 200-700 CE, Northern Highlands, Peru. Earthenware with slip. The Fred Olsen Collection. 1967-29-62.
Exhibition
On View
Aug 28, 2025–Dec 31, 2040
Lower Level | Andean Gallery
Krannert Art Museum’s major reinstallation of its pre-Hispanic Andean arts collection will center past Andean communities as active agents in the creation of their own art histories. Comprising over 700 objects—with 150 currently on view—the museum’s collection includes exquisite textiles, ceramics, and objects fashioned in gold, silver, wood, and shell from cultures that flourished throughout the coastal and highland regions of Peru from 1500 BCE to the Spanish colonial period.
Research and development of Krannert Art Museum’s Andean gallery reinstallation has been generously supported by a grant from the U of I Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Arts and Humanities. Made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom*. Major support provided by the Helen Frankenthaler Climate Initiative. Additional funding provided by the Rosann Gelvin Noel Krannert Art Museum Fund, the M.J. Carragher Memorial Fund, and an Anonymous donor.
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
*Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Growing out of a partnership between Krannert Art Museum, the U of I’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), and the Andean Archaeology research group at University of Illinois Chicago, plans for the reinstallation and development of its conceptual framework have been highly collaborative, taking shape through a series of interdisciplinary workshops involving Andean studies colleagues from across campus, the Midwest, and in Peru. Departing from conventional museum presentations that segregate Andean objects into static silos of culture, period, and region, the new installation will reframe narratives of the Andean past by highlighting the dynamic transcultural networks of knowledge and power through which Andean artists visually animated the natural, spiritual, and political worlds.
Equally important, the presence of Andean archeological holdings in US museums requires us to engage not only the indigenous histories of these objects, but also the fraught histories of their transformation into global commodities looted from ancient burial sites. By tracing the biographies of these objects as fragments abducted from their contexts of origin, the exhibition will explicitly address the destructive histories of looting that brought these objects to Krannert Art Museum.
Interactive Touchscreen and Digital Content: In the Gallery & Beyond
The project also seeks to be reparative by actively engaging with Peruvian colleagues and descendant communities through the co-creation of an interactive digital platform that will allow students, scholars, and communities in Peru to have remote access to the exhibition and to participate in the research and interpretation of their own cultural heritage. The digital content includes interviews with Peruvian collaborators and will be available in the gallery via interactive touchscreens. Presented in Spanish, Quechua, and English, the platform will deepen object biographies with multimedia applications designed to bring past and present Andean voices into conversation.
Offering innovative learning opportunities for campus, public schools, and the growing Latinx communities throughout central Illinois, the reinstallation will invite visitors to ask new questions about the life histories of these objects, and the ethical responsibilities of the museum as we reckon with their displacement, interpretation, and care.
Project Consultants and Collaborators
Mario Advincula
, Project Director of the Vilcashuaman – La Centinela Route of the Qhapac Ñan Project
Carmela Alacron Ledesma
, Co-Director for the Huanangue Valley Archaeology Project
Ocean Arboniés Flores,
Doctoral Student in School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Brian Bauer
, Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC)
Augusto Bazan
, Director of Research for the Wiese Foundation – El Brujo Archaeological Complex
Joél Becerra Llatas
, Champaign, Illinois
Kainen Bell,
doctoral student, School of Information Sciences, UIUC
Sue Bergh,
Art Historian and Curator of Pre-Columbian collection and Native North American collections, Cleveland Museum of Art
Corey Bowen
, Doctoral Student in Department of Anthropology, UIC
Claudia Brosseder
, Associate Professor of History, UIUC
Sofia Chalcatana
, Associate Professor at the Jesuit University Antonio Ruiz de Montoya
Anita Chan,
Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences and Department of Media and Cinema Studies
Ryan Clasby
, Archeologist and postdoctoral fellow at NAGPRA, University of Illinois
Carolyn Dean,
Distinguished Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture, UC Santa Cruz
Rebeca Escamilla
, iSchool, Graduate Research Assistant, UIUC
Anna Maria Escobar
, Professor of Sociolinguistics, UIUC
Edinson Ernesto Delgado Estela,
Director of the Museo Hermogenes Mejía Solf in Jaén, Peru
Victor Font
, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media & Cinema Studies, College of Media, UIUC
Eliana Gamarra Carrillo
, Archeologist, Translator, and Repatriation Specialist
Christine Giuntini
, Conservator, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Andrew Hamilton
, Curator of the Arts of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago
Stephanie Hornbeck
, Director, Caryatid Conservation Services, Washington, DC
Henry Marcello Castillo
,
Director of the Arturo Ruiz Estrada Museum of Archaeology, National University José Faustino Sánchez Carrión, in Huacho, Peru
Claudia Martínez Garay
, Contemporary Artist, in Lima, Peru, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Señor Aníbal Matencio Alarcón
, Community Leader, Acotoma, Peru
Carlos Molinas-Vital
, Linguist and Instructor of Quechua at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, UIUC
Andrew Orta
, Professor of Anthropology, UIUC
Yolanda Rivera
, Graduate Research Assistant, iSchool, UIUC
Helaine Silverman,
Professor of Anthropology, UIUC
Richard Sutter
, Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University
Ashley Vance,
Doctoral Student Department of Anthropology, UIC
Rosa Varillias
, Doctoral Student, Department of Anthropology, UIC
Mary Weismantel
, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Chair of Latin American Studies at Northwestern University
Ryan Williams
, School Director and Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Co-curated by Allyson Purpura, Senior Curator and Curator of Global African Art; and Kasia Szremski, Associate Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Related Content
Article
Resource
Andean Featherworks at KAM
Article
Resource
Behind the Scenes: Conservation of Art
Article
Resource
Telling Stories with Seashells: Krannert Art Museum's Malacological Collections
Article
Resource
Lives in Fragments: Reassessing the KAM Andean Collection
Article
Resource
Weaving Object Histories: Andean Textile Research at KAM
Related Events
Jan 28, 5–7 pm
Members’ Preview and Reception | Spring 2026
Jan 29, 5–7 pm
Opening Night at the Museum! | Spring 2026
Feb 20, 2–3:30 pm
Living Legacies | Panel Discussion with Partners in Peru | “Fragmented Histories: Andean Art Before 1600”
Mar 17, 10 am–Mar 21, 4 pm
Spring Break at Krannert Art Museum – We’re open!
Apr 16, 5:30–7 pm
Curator Talk | Luis A. Muro Ynoñán | Living Legacies