Art with an Expert: Photography and the Modern Imagination of Colonial Mexico

Kathryn O'Rourke leads a talk on photography and colonial Mexico at the Blanton Museum of Art on Sunday, October 18, from 12 PM to 1 PM. It's part of the museum's Art with an Expert series, which brings in artists, curators, and art historians for hour-long deep dives into art and art history.

This particular session is tied to the exhibition Shadows on Stone: Portraits of Colonial Mexican Architecture, which looks at the monasteries built in central Mexico toward the end of the 16th century. Architectural historian John McAndrew describes them as "the most dramatic American architectural innovation before the skyscraper" because of how they blend Gothic rib vaults, Renaissance facades, Moorish ornamentation, and Indigenous stone masonry. The exhibition draws from McAndrew's own photographic archive, part of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at The University of Texas at Austin, and is curated by Marilynn Thoma, Curator of Art of the Spanish Americas.

Art with an Expert sits alongside the Blanton's broader public program, which includes the all-day Blanton All Day, the art party B Scene, the family-oriented Family Art Adventures, the live-music Sound Break, the conversations series Blanton Live: Conversations for Now, and the Senior Social.

Admission is included with Blanton All Day and Senior Social tickets; tickets can also be purchased separately on Senior Social days for those attending Art with an Expert only. Reservations are required because seating is limited. The talk runs from 12 PM to 1 PM on Sunday, October 18, at the Blanton.