Art Stroll

Art Stroll: Museum of Pre Columbian Art in Santiago, Chile

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While I was in Santiago de Chile I went to the Museum of Pre Columbian Art, which is dedicated to the study and display of pre-Columbian artworks and artifacts from Central and South America. I was surprised and happy how inspiring this visit was. It reminded me that things that were done thousands of years ago have inspired art, fabrics and patterns over and over again …

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Cultura Chorrera 1800-300 AC. These bottles are very sophisticated and just amazing.  I will take the fish bottle – thank you :)

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I loved all the details and different materials used by different cultures.

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Cultura pre-mapuche ca. 1300-1500 DC. The first Spanish observers saw Mapuche chiefs holding beautiful stone pieces in the shape of axes as symbols of the power of the war leaders. Love how this simple hatch cross pattern makes such a beautiful piece.

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San Augustin Culture 1-1500 AD – Anthropomorphic Stone Sculpture

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such a gorgeous piece!

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Figurines from ancient Ecuador. The production of clay figurines and small statues was a long pre-Columbian tradition that began 5thousand years ago on the coast of Ecuador.

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500 AC- 200 AC – those three figurines were funky cool!

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Musician, 500 AC – 500 DC – reminded me a little bit of Pinocchio

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And a lot of the artwork reminded me of the home decor of the 60s and also of course artists like Picasso come to mind.

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1-700 DC – not sure if it was a mask or what it was used

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Bottle – 300-600DC – I love this so so much!!!!

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This one was eerie and beautiful at the same time. It had no real information – not even for the time it was made.

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Diaguita Ceramics – characteristic is the minimalistic design. I love this pattern.

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This was the room with the Exhibition called Chile before Chile.

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some headgear – the fabrics were just incredible and intricate – It was breath taking actually.

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This is a Quipu also called talking knots. “Quipu were recording devices and for the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords.

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Isn’t this amazing?

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More fabric- gorgeous colors.

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These wooden statues were placed on top of tombs in ancient Mapuche cemeteries. They reflect the spirit of those buried there and are to intended to assist them in their journey o the afterlife. Chiefs and great warriors were sent to the East after death to roam among the volcanoes of Kalfumapu, the “blue land” . All others went to the West, to eat bitter potatoes beyond the sea. mhhh- you sure wanted to be a great warrior- doesn’t sound like a fun outlook to have to eat bitter potatoes for afterlife to me ;)

Hope you enjoyed this pretty different art stroll ! Have a wonderful day

Nat

Comments (4)

  • Sassy

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    What fun! We visited Santiago two years ago and I took photos (not nearly as well done) as several of the items you did — great memories.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      How wonderful to hear you were there too – wasn’t it an amazing museum?! Have wonderful week!

      Reply

  • Linda Faber

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    Thanks for the gorgeous tour! What an inspiring exhibit! Those colors and designs. Loved it and guess you will add some stamps to your collection from those patterns. Yes?
    Thank you for posting your tour…I’m home recovering from a painful broken rib and have no energy to even create art…so this tour was uplifting for me. :)
    Linda

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Linda, I am so sorry to hear you broke a rib, I hope you are feeling better soon!!! Glad you enjoyed the tour – and maybe ;) there will be some inspiration for future stamps or stencils. Have a wonderful week and sending you big healing hugs! Nat

      Reply

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Art Stroll: Museo De La Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago Chile

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While in Santiago de Chile major strikes caused the public museums to be closed for most of my time there. But this fortunately lead me to go to this little gem of a museum a friend of my husband pointed out to me. The Museum of Solidarity for Salvador Allende. It wasn’t just the collection of the museum, it was the history of it, the history of the building, the street and the country that made it so special to learn about! Upon walking towards the museum which is located on a beautiful street with huge and beautiful villas I noticed many were abandoned and boarded up and only later in the museum did I learn the reason – but let’s start the stroll first.

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“The Museum of Solidarity was first envisioned in 1971. Mario Pedroza, a Brazilian artist exiled in Chile, and a small group of visiting European cultural leaders approached President Allende with a proposal to ask contemporary international painters and sculptors to donate works for a museum of modern art in Santiago to show support for Allende’s newly elected government.”

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By mid-1973, 268 artists from all over the world, including Joan Miro, David Siqueros and Alexander Calder, had contributed paintings or sculptures.

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Manuel Espinosa, Blabakhlud, 1969, Oil on Canvas

“But with the military coup of Sept. 11, 1973, works that were on exhibit in the Presidential Palace and many others still crated on the docks simply disappeared. The works that remained, including a 25-by-100-foot painting by Frank Stella, were wrapped and stored for 17 years in the basement of the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Chile. Even after the military coup in 1973, the works of art continued to arrive to the curators, now in political exile around Europe and the United States. Under the title of Museums of Resistance exhibitions of the donated artwork were held in cultural centers in Sweden, Spain and France, but eventually the works were all returned. At one point, four or five people were responsible for the care of 200 works. After the dictatorship of Pinochet ended, the artworks were restored, and re-collected and the museum finally opened in 2005. “

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Joan Miro, without a title, 1972, oil on canvas

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Kazuya Sakai, without a title, ca. 1970-1972

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Alexander Calder, without title, 1972

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Carol Law, No peace ’til I agree, 1972

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Raul Martinez, Repeticiones de Marti, 1068

 

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in the background: Bernard Rancillac, Tour de France, 1965

These artworks were displayed in a room title Pop Critic.

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Hanns Karlewski, The Duckpond, 1975, paper mache.

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Eduardo Terrazas, 1972

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Myra Landau, Ritmo No7, 1970

 

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Helen Escoedo, Rincon para jazz, 1968

 

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Octavio Bajonero, Chalchiutif

Before I left the museum which was set up in Spanish, I talked to the receptionists to find out more about the neighborhood and the museum itself. I was just baffled that many of the buildings next to the museum were boarded up – an area which in other cities, would count as main prime estate. It was at times eerie walking on the street, even though there were many universities sprinkled in between and a lot of young people on the street. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was off. I learned that the building housing the museum was one of the main communication centers to coordinate intelligence and secret police within the country and amongst South American dictatorships. It was used to detain and eliminate citizens beyond their own borders.

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The building across the street and many others had been used to torture people during the Pinochet regime and after democracy was established again those properties fell to the new government. They put some universities into the buildings, but a lot of those buildings are hard to keep up with and since they are “haunted” by the terrible things that happened in them it is hard to get people to want to move into them and to restore them. Below another building next to the museum which looks “normal” at first glance, but at second is also unoccupied and boarded up.

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The artwork itself in the museum was worth the visit, but the story of the collection made the artwork even more special to look at, the thought behind it, the contribution of so many artists around the world, the hiding of it for several decades, the building housing the museum and it’s context in the street where so many horrible things happened. It made the artwork so much more powerful to know all this and made me appreciate the collection even more. It reminded me that the context of how artwork was created or collected is equally important if not more than the piece itself, and that often artwork so valuable for our society.

I hope you enjoyed this little yet different kind of art stroll.

Nat

Comments (3)

  • Patrick Wagner

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    El Miró tenga un titulo : se llama “Ojos y Estrellas”.

    Reply

  • Madeline Rains

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    I too thought about our country and how important art is now even more than usual. And I thought about Isabel Allende, one of my favorite writers. She talks about this period of history in her book about her daughter, Paula.

    Reply

  • Jean Goza

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    Wow! A very powerful story. I couldn’t help but think about the things that are happening in our own country now. Artistic expression is so important.

    Reply

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Inspired by… Valparaiso, Chile – Exploring Street Art & Colors

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Valparaiso was definitely my favorite while in Chile. Big seaport city, a declared UNESCO World Heritage Site, colorful and fun to explore. Did you hear: Colorful?!

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An amazing amount of street art and painted houses along the winded streets of the hills.

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The cables are kind of as crazy as in the U.S.  lol – – but I was smitten by the colorful stairs.

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There was just so much to see and take in

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Valparaiso was once called “Little San Francisco” and streets like these made me understand why :) As you stop every 2 seconds too look at something colorful and amazing you make your way way up there – good workout to walk off some of the delicious empanadas we had for lunch.

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How fun is this lady?

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and I so so so loved the colors and imagery and patterns here

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And some fun mark making patterns

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swoon

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More beautiful flowers set next to a beautiful blue house – BAM like color explosion

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I loved that the hydrants were yellow and not red.

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Look at this row of houses all in different colors

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and a door bell plate

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and the mixture of corrogated metal, wooden door and graphity – I love the texture, the colors and the feel

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Some interesting houses – loads of balconies

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Amazing!

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Inspiration EVERYWHERE

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and it was so green too

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but I did feel for the gas cartridge delivery guy – ouch!

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And so slowly we made our way down – had some seafood close to the harbor and went back to Santiago.

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This day in Valparaiso made me super happy – I am smiling writing the post and looking at those photos again. Hope you enjoyed the photos as much :)

Nat

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Inspired by… Santiago de Chile

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My husband was invited to give a talk and a workshop at a conference in Chile. So I went and met him in Santiago de Chile for a little vacation. A day later than planned, as my trip wasn’t starting off very pleasantly. I missed my connecting flight in Houston after sitting three hours due to insane thunderstorms on the runway here in Newark, had to go back home after watching an entire movie on the plane and arrived 24 hours later than planned at my destination.

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But …I was determined to not let this start ruin the trip and as soon as I woke up after a 16 hour flight at 8am in the morning and crossed along the Andes to land in Chile I was super excited and ready for new adventures for the next five days.

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It is spring in Santiago right now and the temperature reached already about 91 F (33C). The flowers and colors everywhere were just so beautiful!

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This is a gorgeous door of the main cathedral in Chile – I just love how modern and happy this looks.

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We climbed up the Santa Lucia Hill from which you can see the snow covered Andes far away and have a beautiful view over the city

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Found a beautiful little church on top of the hill too – which made us feel as if we were in a small village and not in a big and buzzing city.

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I loved this broken tile pavement near an artisan market.

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And there was a lot of street art too.

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And more views from another hill in the city

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with this statue on top.

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And a lot of yummie good food – Ceviche – a fish salad with corn , cilantro, lime, red onions, and sweet potato – delicious and definitely something I will make next summer and Pisco Sour …a very delightful cocktail – and some Empanadas …nom nom nom.

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There were demonstrations on the street every day by government workers because of the privatization of pension funds and due to those strikes the museums and other public places were closed the whole week. I was able to go to some museums before our flight home on the last day- and will of course share an Art Stroll with you soon :) We also had a little earth quake which could be felt by the conference attendees and my husband in the university (it was a 6.4 magnitude earth quake about 50 miles away and shook the building quite a lot – luckily nothing bad happened) while I two blocks away stepped accidentally into the middle of the demonstration and if it shook- I must have thought it was the police tanks- LOL – I did not realize anything. And yes- I was safe – these were very peaceful demonstrations!

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This was my favorite graffiti not knowing that it had a deeper meaning too. I just loved this guy and the dimension and the shadow and then later in the museum I found photographs from the turn of the century of the last living members of a tribe called Selk’nam and in those photos one of the body paintings for ceremonies and head gear was like the one in the graffiti. One wasn’t allowed to take photos of the photos- but I found a pinterest board with some of the images if you are interested. It filled me with a lot of sadness that the Selk’nam tribe in these photos taken just a bit over a hundred years ago is now extinct.

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Here is more street art from Santiago

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These two were close to the Museum of Fine Art. I found them so unique and different in their colors, of course the symbols etc. and I wish I had the key to read the deeper meaning to those.

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Hope you liked the little trip to Santiago- there is more to come from my trip there – stay tuned .

have a gorgeous weekend!

Nat

Comments (9)

  • Judi

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    We went to Chile in 2007. Truthfully, I felt safer there than in my own country the USA! Several people reached out to help us without us asking for assistance. We had a wonderful time there visiting several cities including Santiago. It was memorable!!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      judi that sounds wonderful, which other cities were you at? Nat

      Reply

        • nathalie-kalbach

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          Thank you so much for sharing Judi! Valparaiso was my favorite. But that was all I saw- Santiago and Valparaiso – I guess I have to come back :)

          Reply

          • Judi

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            We hate flying long flights so I doubt we will go back but we have great memories of that trip. Chile was one of my all time favorite countries we have visited. We felt very safe and cared for by the very kind people living there. I hope you get a chance to return to see more. Take care.

            Reply

  • JoAnn

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    Thank you for sharing and I love your new website.

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Thank you so much JoAnn- so glad you like it :) Have a wonderful weekend!

      Reply

  • Carolina Nicewarner

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    Natalie,

    Thank you so much for the window into Chile. That trip is on our bucket list, something we both want to do before we don’t have time left. Do you feel safe during your trip? We lived in Venezuela for 3 years, about 12 years ago, and the people were so so kind, and the country was gorgeous. Unfortunately, since we left, there have been many changes and travel there is not suggested, which is so sad.

    Cannot wait to see the rest of your pictures…

    Carolina

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Hi Carolina, glad you enjoyed the post. Yes- I felt safe- I mean of course as in every city you have to be aware to not flash your belongings around or keep your bag close to you etc. Pickpocketing is an issue. But other than that I did not feel more unsafe when being in NYC. Everyone was super helpful and nice and I had a very positive experience. Hope you will have a good time as well.

      Reply

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