Maya artworks to be topic of Dunkerly Dialogue

The vigor and brilliance of ancient Maya artwork, brought to light in new reconstructions, will be explored in a panel discussion titled ?Maya Murals: The Art of Power,? beginning at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19, in the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore.

The discussion will feature alumna Heather Hurst ?97, a MacArthur Foundation award-winning archaeological artist and illustrator whose work will be on view in Maya Murals: The Art of Power, Oct. 11, 2008?Jan. 4, 2009 in the Tang Museum?s Winter Gallery. The panel will also include Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology and archeology at Brown University; and Susan Bender, Skidmore professor of anthropology and one of Hurst?s undergraduate mentors.

The Tang exhibition will showcase Hurst?s detailed renderings of murals from pre-Columbian Maya sites in Bonampak and San Bartolo, located in present-day Mexico and Guatemala. It will also feature original architectural drawings of the sites and related historical objects. To resurrect the ancient murals, Hurst drew on her dual training in art and archaeology, training that included such disparate elements as research into Maya courtly life, chemical analysis of original pigments, and a fluency in Mayan language and writing.

The murals at Bonampak realistically depict events in the life of Bonampak rulers in the ninth century. Hurst?s large-scale Bonampak rendering on view at the Tang Museum displays a chaotic and violent battle in a war between two city states, a central element in the life of Maya rulers. The San Bartolo murals, discovered in 2001 by archeologist William Saturno, present a detailed portrayal of mythological scenes and the tradition of Maya kingship and date from 100 B.C.E. More stylized and graphically fanciful than the Bonampak murals, they have added an unexpected new chapter to the early history of Mayan art, religion, and language.

Hurst?s unusual career began at Skidmore under the guidance of Bender, who encouraged her to attend field school in Honduras. ?I was terrible at digging,? recalled Hurst, ?but I was the only one who could draw.? Drawing turned out to be useful in archaeology. ?Artifacts are usually recorded primarily through photography,? said Hurst, while scientific drawings have been 
considered ?additional records.? But when ancient murals and other works are located underground or hidden in dense jungle?difficult to see and nearly impossible to photograph?precise on-site measurements can be combined with ?the human eye, hand, and trained imagination? to 
produce ?drawings that no camera or computer could capture.?


A pioneer in a field she is helping to reshape, Hurst is now a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and archaeology at Yale University. The MacArthur Foundation, which endorsed her innovative work with a $500,000 ?genius grant? in 2004, noted that, ?She has produced a vivid window into the Maya past, revealing the details of forgotten monuments, their human faces, and their architectonic intentions. Her paintings and architectural renderings not only recover previously lost records, but are works of art in their own right.? Hurst?s work has been exhibited at Yale University, Harvard University, the National Gallery of Art, and published in National Geographic and Arqueologma Mexicana.

The panel discussion is part of the Tang Museum?s series of Dunkerley Dialogues, public conversations that bring artists and distinguished speakers to the Skidmore campus to discuss Tang exhibitions and ideas. For more information, call (518) 580-8080.