READ
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Toxcatl Massacre, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex ("Of the Conquest of New Spain"). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 1 (detail). Courtesy of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, and by permission of MiBACT
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Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy
Last month marked 500 years since the Toxcatl massacre in which Indigenous people were killed during a festival that took place in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (today's Mexico City). Numerous diverging historical accounts of this event exist. In one Spanish telling, the conquistadors acted in self-defense—yet a very different narrative emerges in the Mexica version that is recounted in excruciating detail in the Nahuatl-language texts of the Florentine Codex. The attack during the Toxcatl festival incited a war that led to the end of Aztec supremacy and to the beginning of the conquest of Mexico.
Read more on the Getty Iris.
WATCH
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Theaster Gates at Getty Center, 2019
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Dance of Malaga: A Conversation with Theaster Gates
Urban planner, sculptor, and potter, Theaster Gates, is internationally renowned for his artistic installations related to social justice issues. On the occasion of the conclusion of the 2019 Getty Scholar Year Symposium on the theme of monumentality, Gates—then artist-in-residence at the Getty Research Institute—screened his film,
Dance of Malaga (2019). The film, a monument to the people of Malaga Island, Maine, is a meditation on love and race in America. The screening was followed by a conversation with the Research Institute's deputy director, Andrew Perchuk.
Watch the conversation.
LISTEN
Amplifying the Sound of Russian Futurist Poetry
Russian
zaum (a neologism translated as "beyond the mind" or "beyonsense") is a unique form of avant-garde poetry that blends text, image, and sound—so to "read"
zaum poetry, you must also
hear it and
see it. This interactive "poem reader" is a companion website to Nancy Perloff's book on Russian futurist book art from 1910 to 1915,
Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art, published by the Getty Research Institute (2017). It allows users to experience the fusion of word-image-sound through audio recordings, Russian transliterations, and English translations of 10
zaum poems, presented with full-screen digital reproductions from the artist's books.
Explore the Explodity interactive site.
Read about the making of this digital project on the Getty Iris.
LEARN
Intaglio Printmaking Techniques Explained
What do drypoint, etching, aquatint have in common? They are all intaglio printmaking techniques made by incising a design into the surface of a metal plate, which is then inked and wiped. Ink is held in the incised marks and transferred onto a sheet of paper, with the help of a printing press. This is different from woodcut, in which the ink adheres to the raised portion of the wood, or lithography, in which the ink adheres to a drawing on the flat surface of the stone. We have explored different intaglio processes by looking at rare working proofs and finished prints by German artist Käthe Kollwitz.
Learn about intaglio techniques from master printer Jacob Samuel.
CURATOR'S CHOICE
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Poster of Like a Bird, 1972, István Haraszty. Getty Research Institute, 2014.M.36. © István Haraszty
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István Haraszty's Like a Bird, 1972
In the 1972 exhibition at the legendary Chapel Studio, in Hungary, István Haraszty presented a modified bird cage. The cage had an electrical-magnetic system controlling the door's movement in relation to the enclosed bird's position. As the artist explained:
"When the bird sits on the red-black resting pole, the door of the cage opens. When it flies towards the door, the magnetic field disappears, and the door once again closes."
Interpretations of the piece were so politicized that the authorities shut down the exhibit. Our Associate Curator Isotta Poggi sees a timely relevance in Haraszty's work, entitled
Like a Bird, which challenged the notion of freedom under systemic oppression.
Read more on the Getty Iris.
NEW FOR RESEARCHERS
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Karak: Beurdj de Daher, Henri Joseph Sauvaire photographs from the duc de Luynes's second expedition to the Holy Land, 1866. Getty Research Institute, 2019.R.32
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Henri Joseph Sauvaire photographs, 1866
Finding Aid
In 1866, French diplomat, numismatist, Orientalist, and amateur photographer, Henri Joseph Sauvaire, acted as the photographer for the duc de Luynes's second expedition to the Holy Land. While transversing the Transjordan to explore and record the Crusader castles that were once part of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Sauvaire took the seventy-three images including views of the castles Kerak at Al-Karak (Qīr Mōav) and Montréal in Shoubak, as well as of ruined mosques, tombs and Nabatean and Roman temples in the region that comprise this collection.
Browse the finding aid.
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