Implementation of a traveling exhibition, a scholarly catalog, and online materials that explore the private life of creole and indigenous elites in Spanish colonial America and how identity, social status, and ambition were communicated by the art and luxury objects they chose to display in their homes.
The Brooklyn Museum requests an implementation grant in the amount of $354,356 to support the final planning stages, the installation and travel to subsequent venues of the exhibition, "Behind Closed Doors: Power and Privilege at Home in Spanish America" (working title). The overall objectives of the exhibition are to provide a broad New World context for the ostentatious consumption and display as a social strategy for negotiating status and establishing identity in the Americas; to expand the public's understanding of Spanish elite culture to include indigenous, creole and European perspectives; and to present a wealthy New World social class who in the 19th century, after 300 years of political oppression by the Spanish crown, played a key role in determining the course of Peruvian and Mexican history. The exhibition will be accompanied by educational and public programming as well as a catalogue.