Leandro Katz. The Castle [Chichén Itzá]. 1985

Leandro Katz The Castle [Chichén Itzá] 1985

  • Not on view

In the 1830s the explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood were the first English-speakers to study the regions originally settled by the Maya in the Yucatán, Chiapas, Guatemala, and Honduras. Catherwood’s drawings and the images he took with a camera lucida made the sites famous. Katz traveled to the Yucatán in 1984, reconstructing Stephens and Catherwood’s expeditions for The Catherwood Project. Some of Katz’s images test the accuracy of Catherwood’s and reveal how the colonial explorer romanticized these monuments. Others show Katz’s hand holding the published images, drawing attention to his presence as an act of recuperation of history.

Gallery label from 2022
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
20 × 16" (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Credit
Promised gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund in honor of May Castleberry
Object number
PG720.2017
Copyright
© 2023 Leandro Katz
Department
Photography

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