Art in a Box
The College’s latest academic addition a program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies—did not take long to launch itself. One of its first moves was to bring Peruvian artist Nicario Jimenez to campus this past fall to exhibit and demonstrate a folk-art tradition his family has practiced for generations. Kneading plaster of paris into a peeled, boiled potato, Jimenez deftly sculpted a human figure like those that populate colorful boxed dioramas known as retablos. Based on the portable shrines the conquistadors introduced to the New World, Jimenez’s retablos range from Christian themes to scenes of Andean corn harvests and depictions of the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest. The works range in size' as well, from elaborate sculp- tures filling carton-sized wooden boxes to minia- ture scenes glued into matchboxes. Retablos are, according to History Professor Marysa Navarro, chair of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, one of Latin America’s “unique cultural expressions.”
Dartmouth is, of course, home to another example of Latin American art, this one considerably larger and installed in Baker Library rather than a portable box: the Orozco Murals.
