Antes de America

"Antes de America. Fuentes originarias en la cultura moderna"  presents, with more than six hundred works, a long process based on sources that date back to long before Europeans named an entire continent America: that of reinterpretation, in modern and contemporary culture. . , of the forms and meanings of ancient indigenous civilizations and cultures, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The beginning of the exhibition places us in the initial moments of this process, the end of the 18th century, and its development throughout the 19th century, focusing attention on some scientific expeditions in the American continent, archaeological discoveries, the formation of collections, and the subsequent development of historicist architecture. This process took on an Americanist identity dimension, which was accentuated at the beginning of the 20th century with the reinterpretation, especially in the field of arts and crafts schools, of pre-Columbian knowledge and languages, which led to the transformation of graphic design, literature, theater, and cinema.