Artist Conversation: Ana De Orbegoso—Peruvian Portraits, Past and Present @artinstitutechi
Artist Conversation: Ana De Orbegoso—Peruvian Portraits, Past and Present  @artinstitutechi
Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
"¿Y qué hacemos con nuestra historia?" — "So what do we do with our history?"

In a series of works by that title—"¿Y qué hacemos con nuestra historia?"—Peruvian artist Ana De Orbegoso questions the role of the past in contemporary art. In one piece in the series, "Neo-Huaco #3," De Orbegoso uses gold to recreate one of the most recognizable forms of ancient Andean ceramics: so-called “portrait vessels” made by Moche artists who lived on the north coast of Peru between the 2nd and 8th centuries.

De Orbegoso joins curator Andrew Hamilton for a conversation about her work and how it demonstrates the dynamic understandings that come from putting ancient art in conversation with later Latin American, Native American, and Indigenous artistic traditions—from the colonial era to the contemporary moment.
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The Art Institute of Chicago |

Artist Conversation: Ana De Orbegoso—Peruvian Portraits, Past and Present

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