Alessandra Russo
Alessandra Russo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Director of the Hispanic Institute. Her research studies the theory, practice and display of the arts in the early modern times, with a special emphasis on the artistic dynamics in the context of the Iberian colonization. An Interview with Columbia News is accessible here.
Professor Russo's last book, A New Antiquity. Art and Humanity as Universal (1400-1600) (Penn State University Press, 2024), analyzes the active role that the artifacts encountered—but also those pillaged and collected—in the global context of the Iberian colonization in the Americas, Africa, and Asia had on the modern idea of art. She is also author of The Untranslatable Image (Texas University Press; French edition: L’image intraduisible, Les Presses du Réel), El realismo circular (IIE-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), and co-editor of Images Take Flight (Hirmer Verlag-distr. University of Chicago Press; Best book award in "theory of art" and Grand Prix du Jury at FILAF and Honorable Mention, ALAA Book Award).
Russo's new book manuscript, entitled The Great Custodian. Artistic Education with Sebastiano Biavati, explores at 360 degrees the artistic universes safeguarded in seventeenth century Bologna by Sebastiano Biavati, the custodian of Ferdinando Cospi's art collections —most likely, the first art custodian represented authoritatively holding an artifact in his hands. Biavati was in charge of artworks and naturalia spanning from Italian contemporary painting to classical antiquities, from masterpieces arrived from the Americas, Africa, and Asia to natural species, from fine scientific instruments to documents kept in different writing and pictographic systems (see the essay "The Curator's Eyes"). In tandem with the book, Russo is working on the exhibition project Sebastiano, il Custode del Mondo. Universi artistici a Bologna nel Seicento.
Professor Russo is Museum Advisory Committee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (for the reinstallation of the Gallery of Central Europe, and for the recently opened Gallery of Northern Renaissance). With the support of a Getty Foundation Collaborative Research Grant, she has curated with Gerhard Wolf and Diana Fane the exhibition El vuelo de las imágenes. Arte plumario en México y Europa. 1300-1700 (Museo Nacional de Arte). She also collaborated with Serge Gruzinski in the curatorship of Planète Métisse (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris).
Professor Russo was trained in art history and historical anthropology at the Universitá di Bologna, at the Universiteit Leiden, and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, in Paris. She has been visiting researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas/ UNAM, in Mexico, where she did intensive archival and fieldwork. She has been a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg-Institute for Advanced Study, in Berlin and a visiting professor at ESBA of Genève and at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, and at the EHESS where she is associate member of the Centre de recherches sur les mondes Américains (CERMA).
Teaching and Advising
At Columbia, Professor Russo teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the Early Modern period with a special emphasis on the artistic dynamics in the context of the Iberian expansion. She has designed for the Global Core of the Columbia College the course Artistic Humanity, which she offers both in English and in Spanish.
" Researching, teaching, and advising are for me interrelated thinking activities. I conceive all my courses (both at the undergraduate and graduate level) in close dialogue with my ongoing writing projects—hence, they are always research courses. In this way, students participate in the discovery of materials and in the production of new questions and analysis. They are in contact with the newest ideas and archives that I am myself thinking about. Yet, the syllabi are always designed to introduce students to broad topics related to Early Modern times where they can discover their own interests as well. Throughout the semester and the years following, I help students give shape to their own topics and hypotheses. I do not assign paper themes, nor thesis subjects. I rather echo the initial idea or question a student shares with me, and together we work from there. I find this the most rewarding advising experience: to see how new thinking and potentially substantial research subjects generate from students' initial interests, intuitions and work."
Recent advisees' and co-advisees' dissertation topics in Early Modern global history and art history can be consulted on clio.
Research group "Spanish Italy and Iberian Americas" (Getty Foundation, 2017-2025)
Alessandra Russo and Michael Cole have been awarded a Getty Foundation "Connecting Art Histories" grant for a project on the artistic interactions between Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas in the 16th century. The project brought together younger scholars from Italy and Latin America with a group of distinguished faculty to study the artistic ties that developed between these two regions. After supporting a first phase on Milan and Naples (with a workshop in NYC), the Getty Foundation offered a second fellowship to continue the project with a special focus on Sardinia and Puglia. On January, 10 and 11, 2023, the research group offered a final symposium at the Kunsthistorisches Institut-Max Planck and at Villa I Tatti-Harvard University in Florence. The program of the two-day event is available here.
The project disseminates the group's research through public initiatives, including the digital publication which features : a catalogue with essays authored by the participants on objects, monuments, maps, and prints; a bibliography; and a photographic library. A collective volume is in preparation for the series "Essays and Studies" of the Center for the Renaissance and Reformation Studies, CRRS.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books:
A New Antiquity: Art and Humanity as Universal, 1400–1600. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2024 (272 pp., 75 ills.).
The Untranslatable Image: A Mestizo History of the Arts in New Spain (1500–1600). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014 (374 pp., 150 ills.); paperback edition 2023.
L’image intraduisible: Une histoire métisse des arts en Nouvelle-Espagne (1500–1600). Collection Œuvres en Société. Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2013 (496 pp., 150 ills.).
El realismo circular: Tierras, espacios y paisajes de la cartografía novohispana; Siglos XVI–XVII. Mexico City: IIE-UNAM, 2005 (250 pp., 351 ills.).
Images Take Flight. Feather Art in Mexico and Europe, 1300–1700, edited by Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf, and Diana Fane. Munich: Hirmer Verlag with Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz–Max-Planck-Institut; Mexico City: Museo Nacional de Arte de México, distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 2015 (480 pp., 270 color ills.).
Articles:
“Dopo l’esotismo: Per una storia contemporanea delle arti nella prima modernità.” In La scuola del mondo: Storie globali della collezione Farnese, edited by Simone Verde, 43–51. Milan: Electa, 2023.
“Speaking to the Present: Rebirths in Pre-Columbian Art / Parlare al presente; Rinascite dell’arte precolombiana.” In Recycling Beauty, edited by Salvatore Settis and Anna Anguissola, 314–321 (English text; Italian text 4–5). Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2022.
“Multilingual Dialogues between Artifacts and Words in Early Modern Times.” In Art History before English: Negotiating a European Lingua Franca from Vasari to the Present, edited by Robert Brennan et al., 107–122. Milan: Officina Libraria, 2021.
“Questa macchina mondiale: Thresholds and Circulations through Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas in Lorenzo D’Anania’s La universal fabrica del mondo (Naples, 1573).” In “The Catalogue,” Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas, edited by Michael Cole and Alessandra Russo, 2021.
“Lights on the Antipodes: Francisco de Holanda and an Art History of the Universal.” Art Bulletin 102, no. 4 (December 2020): 37–65.
“This is [Not] a Crown: Annunciazione with Donors attributed to Giandomenico Catalano (ca. 1630). In “The Catalogue,” Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas, edited by Michael Cole and Alessandra Russo, 2019.
“The Curator's Eyes: Sebastiano Biavati, Custodian of a Heterogeneous Artistic World.” In The Significance of Small Things, edited by Luisa Elena Alcalá and Ken Moser, 150–158. Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2018.
“Le temps en mouvement.” In Serge Gruzinski: Le passeur persévérant, edited by Carmen Bernand et al., 11–25. Paris: CNRS, 2017.
“An Artistic Humanity: New Positions on Art and Freedom in the Context of the Iberian Expansion (1500–1600).” Res, Anthropology and Aesthetics 65/66 (2014/2015): 353–363.
“A Contemporary Art from New Spain.” In Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe, 1300–1700, edited by Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf, and Diana Fane, 4–49. Munich: Hirmer Verlag / KHI/MUNAL, 2015, distributed by Chicago University Press.
“Inventory of Extant Feather Mosaics from Mesoamerica and New Spain.” In Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe, 1300–1700, edited by Alessandra Russo, Gerhard Wolf, and Diana Fane, 452–468. Munich: Hirmer Verlag / KHI/MUNAL, distributed by Chicago University Press, 2015.
“Cartography: Spanish America” (paired entry on “Cartography” with Ricardo Padrón). In Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque: Technologies of a Transatlantic Culture, edited by Kenneth Mills and Evonne Levy, 28–32. Austin: Texas University Press, 2013.
“De tlacuilolli: Renaissance Artistic Theory in the Wake of the Iberian Global Turn.” In Art History in the Wake of the Global Turn, edited by Jill Casid and Aruna D’Souza, 20–39. Williamstown, MA: Clark Institute; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
“Recomposing the Image: Presents and Absents in the Mass of Saint Gregory, Mexico, 1539.” In Synergies: Creating Art in Joined Culture, edited by Manuela De Giorgi, Annette Hoffmann, and Nicole Suthor, 465–481. Studies in Honor of Gerhard Wolf. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2013.
“These Statues They Generally Called çemi: A New Object at the Crossroad of Languages.” In The Challenge of the Object / Die Herausforderung des Objekts, edited by Ulrich Grossmann and Petra Krutisch, 45–49. International Congress of the History of Art (CIHA2012: Congress proceedings). Nuremberg, 2013.
“Tradition.” Notes from the Field. Art Bulletin 95, no. 4 (December 2013): 540–543.
“Salir del laberinto: Tradición y contemporaneidad en las propuestas de tres artistas mexicanos.” In Brincando fronteras:Creaciones locales mexicanas y globalización, edited by Patrice Giasson, 116–144. Mexico, City: CONACULTA, 2012.
“Uncatchable Colors.” Postface to Colors Between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagún, 388–410. Florence: Villa I Tatti, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies / Kunstisthorisches Institut in Florenz–Max-Planck-Institute, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2012.
“Cortés’s objects and the Idea of New Spain: Inventories as Spatial Narratives.” In “Captured Objects: Inventories of Early Modern Collections,” edited by Lia Markey and Jessica Keating. Special issue. Journal of the History of Collections23, no. 2 (2011): 229–252.
“Everywhere in this New Spain: Extension and Articulation of an Artistic World.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 29, no. 3 (Spring 2010): 12–17.
“The Global before Globalization,” with Barry Flood, David Joselit, Alex Nagel, Eugene Wang, Chris Wood, and Mimi Yiengpruksawan. October, no. 133 (Summer 2010): 3–19.
“Figuras, mosaicos y queros … otras ‘artes de la pintura’ en los reinos.” In Pintura de los reinos: Identidades compartidas; Territorios del mundo hispánico, siglos XVI–XVIII, edited by Juana Gutiérrez, with an introduction by Jonathan Brown, 3:775–819. Mexico City: Fomento Cultural BANAMEX, 2009 (pdf includes both the text in Spanish and the English translation).
“Horizontlinie, Point of No Return: Die Ankunft der Spanier an der Küste Mexikos in den Illustrationen des Codex Durán.” In Das Meer, der Tausch und die Grenzen der Repräsentation, 311–322. Berlin: Diaphanes Verlag, 2009.
“Image-plume, temps reliquaire? Tangibilités d’une histoire esthétique.” In Traditions et temporalités des images, edited by G. Careri, F. Lissarague, J-C. Schmitt, and C. Severi, 153–164. Paris, EHESS, 2009.
“A travers l’image: Invention et fabrique des métissages” In Planète Métisse, exhibition catalogue, edited by Serge Gruzinski, 90–105. Paris: Actes Sud and Musée du Quai Branly, 2008.
“Le Codex Borbonicus, corps-document: Anatomie du visuel.” In Planète Métisse, exhibition catalogue, edited by Serge Gruzinski, 25–31. Paris: Actes Sud and Musée du Quai Branly, 2008.
“Le temps en accordéon, soit le Codex Borbonicus.” In “Dossier Métissages,” edited by Serge Gruzinski. Special issue. CNRS, November 2008: 25–28.
“‘Caminando sobre la tierra, de nuevo desconocida, toda cambiada’: La invención de la pintura del paisaje en la cartografía novohispana, siglos XVI–XVII.” In “Carografias ibero-americanas.” Special issue. Terra Brasilis: Revista de História do Pensamiento Geográfico no Brasil 6–8, nos. 7–9 (2007): 97–120.
“Méduse américaine: Pour une histoire esthétique des créations en plumes et des choix muséographiques qui les donnent aujourd’hui à voir.” In “Voir, oir, falar: Dossier spécial ouverture du Musée du Quai Branly.” Special issue. Nuevo Mundo–Mundos Nuevos, no. 6 (2006).
“A Tale of two bodies : On Aesthetic Condensation in the Mexican Colonial Graffiti of Actopan, 1629.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 49/50 (2006): 59–79.
“El vuelo de las imágenes: Breve historia de una próxima exposición sobre el arte plumario novohispano entre dos mundos.” In “Sgardi incrociati sull’oggetto etnografico.” Special issue. Thule (Perugia) 16/17, 2006: 315–331.
“Plumes of Sacrifice: Transformations in Sixteenth-Century Mexican Feather Art.” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 42 (2002): 226–250.
“El Renacimiento vegetal: Arboles de Jesé entre el Viejo Mundo y el Nuevo.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 73 (1998): 5–39.
“‘Lenguaje de figuras y su entendimiento’: Preparación de un estudio sobre los graffitis de la época colonial.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 73 (1998): 187–192.
“L’incontro di due mondi artistici: L’immagine come strumento della rieducazione missionaria e l’arte plumaria del XVI secolo.” Miscellanea di storia delle Esplorazioni (Università di Genova), no. 22 (1997): 57–100. Spanish translation: “El encuentro de dos mundos artísticos en el arte plumario méxicano del siglo XVI.” Prohistoria (Universidad del Rosario, Argentina), no. 2 (1998): 63–91.