Thursday December 16, 2004 Tiwanaku - Ancestors of the Inca
I had the opportunity this afternoon to visit the Tiwanaku - Ancestors of the Inca exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Tiwanaku, or Tiahuanaco, was a pre-Columbian civilization (c.200AD - c.1100AD) based near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.
The exhibit was relatively small (less than 100 exhibits), but impressive nonetheless. 18 of the objects in the exhibit were never exhibited before and 39 of the object were never before exhibited in the United States. I was particularly impressed by the variety of objects presented, including painted ceramics, gold and silver jewelry, stone statues, wooden implements, and woven garments. I found the state of preservation of the textiles, some over 1500 years old, truly remarkable.
After viewing the Tiwanaku exhibit, I spent an hour or so viewing the No Boundaries exhibit - an exhibit of 'fiber art' - and some of my favorite works in the 'European and American Art' portion of the permanent collection. Linda (John DeAndrea - 1983), an eerily realistic sculpture of a sleeping nude done in polyvinyl, was the first stop on my hurried tour. Other stops of note included Water Lily Pond (Claude Monet - 1904), Cow (Georgia O'Keefe - 1921), and Autumn (Giuseppe Arcimboldo - 1572).
I completed my visit with a quick trip through the 'Spanish Colonial' exhibit, perhaps my favorite section in the permanent collection.
All in all, the visit was relatively satisfying given its brief duration.
( Dec 16 2004, 06:47:37 PM PST )
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