Pinturas cegadas

Abstract

This collection of essays brings together a selection of works that were presented at the inaugural 1° Congreso Internacional sobre Cultura Visual Iberoamericana [siglos XVI a XVIII] (International Congress on Ibero-American Visual Culture), whose core theme and subtitle was “Malas imágenes: lugares visuales de la disputa” (Bad images: visual places of dispute). Held on December 9 and 10, 2021, the meeting was organized by the Quillca program, which is devoted to the study of South American colonial art and housed in the Centro de Estudios sobre Arte, Materia y Cultura of Argentina’s Tres de Febrero University. The Congress, whose opening and closing lectures were given by Ilona Katzew (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and Felipe Pereda (Harvard University), was an opportunity to study the provocative (that is, “bad”) side of Ibero-American images. The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines malo (bad) as that which has “valor negativo, falto de las cualidades que cabe atribuirle por su naturaleza, función o destino” (negative value, lacking the qualities that ought to be attributed to it, given its nature, function or purpose). Starting with this definition, this dossier opens a range of possibilities for discussion about the badness of images.