Monumentally Indian: The Photography of Edward Curtis and the Cuzco School of Photography

Abstract

‘Monumentally Indian’ analyzes the similarities and differences in the representation of indigeneity in photography in the US and the Southern Peruvian Andes during the first decades of the twentieth century. The article shows an underlying (and often unconscious) poetic at work in the critical and popular reception of these photographic archives that undermines their potential for creating a radically new visual field.