Current Issue: Volume 16, Issue 1 (2024) Hemisphere:Visual Cultures of the Americas Volume XVI 2024

Introduction

The sixteenth volume of Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas engages with a fascinating and multifaceted theme: the intersection of art and science, particularly within Ibero-American contexts. Often perceived as opposites, these disciplines have long shared a dynamic relationship that transcends traditional boundaries. Through the essays and features in this issue, we explore how the fields of art and science converge, diverge, and inform one another across a broad historical and cultural spectrum.

This year’s issue builds upon an expanding body of scholarship that reexamines the intertwined histories of art and science. Drawing inspiration from figures such as Daniela Bleichmar, Elias Trabulse, Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, and Carlos Viesca Treviño among others and spanning colonial botanical expeditions to contemporary artistic practices, the articles in this volume illuminate how these seemingly distinct realms mutually reinforce each other. They uncover stories embedded in the visual and material cultures of the Americas, including instances where scientific inquiry inspires artistic expression and where art serves as a vital medium for scientific exploration.

In “Extrayendo El Pulque: Tlachiquero’s Spectral Subjectivity and the Visuality of Pulque’s Extractive Zone,” Josh Gomez examines the cultural and material history of pulque production in Mexico, uncovering how its association with indigeneity reflects broader colonial processes of extraction. Kiki Barnes, in “‘Focus on’ South America: Mary Upjohn Meader’s 1937 Aerial Photography of Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay,” explores how photography functions as both a documentary and aesthetic tool in representing Native cultures of the region. Ashar Mobeen’s “Wonders of the Ancestral Puebloans: Astronomers, Engineers, and Magicians of the Four Corners” traces Native astronomical knowledge through Pueblo art and material culture, challenging Eurocentric narratives of scientific history. Together, these works demonstrate how landscape is extracted, represented, and contested through different visual methods, whether through documentary labor imagery, aerial photography, or Native artistic traditions—each shaping the ways we understand the relationship between land, culture, and history.

Joe Baez’s essay, “Neither “Before” Nor “After”: Fat Ambivalence in Laura Aguilar’s Body (of Work),” takes a critical look at the late artist’s work, exploring how Aguilar’s photography reshapes perceptions of the body and defies conventional aesthetic norms. Meanwhile, Yunji Lee’s “Botanical Imaginations: South American Botanical Art” examines the enduring legacy of casta representations in relation to the Quito Audiencia, highlighting the role of visual art in shaping and sustaining knowledge of the natural world as intrinsically linked to genealogical perceptions. Taken together, Baez and Lee’s analyses reveal the enduring tensions in how bodies are visualized—whether as subjects asserting their own representation or as objects embedded in colonial systems of knowledge. Their works highlight the ways historical genealogies continue to inform contemporary visual culture, shaping how bodies are seen, categorized, and understood in both personal and institutional contexts.

In addition to these thought-provoking essays, we are pleased to feature a book review by Emmanuel Ramos-Barajas, who examines Caroline Winterer’s How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America. This compelling work addresses how scientific and cultural understandings of time in the Americas reshaped global perspectives. Our Artist Spotlight features Claudia Hermano, a recent MFA graduate whose work critically examines body size, gender, and race as socially constructed concepts. Through their art, Hermano explores the complexities of corporeality and challenges conventional notions of bodily authenticity and selfhood.

We extend our deepest gratitude to the authors, our faculty advisors, and our dedicated associate editors, whose hard work and collaboration made this volume possible. The sixteenth volume of Hemisphere seeks to foster dialogue and expand understanding of how art and science intersect, enriching the field of art history and beyond.

We invite you to engage with these contributions and reflect on the profound ways in which visual and material cultures shape—and are shaped by—scientific and artistic pursuits across time and space.