H-ART. Revista de historia, teoría y crítica de arte

hart. Rev. Hist. Teor. Crit. Arte | eISSN 2590-9126 | ISSN 2539-2263

Beyond the Milky Way (1978): Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff’s Visual History

No. (2025-10-24)
  • Carlos Rojas Cocoma
    University of Bern
    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9085-5189
https://doi.org/10.25025/hart.10616

Abstract

In the history of Colombian archaeology and anthropology, the role of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff (1912–1994) is well known, and his research on indigenous art is an essential component of his legacy. Better known for his visual analysis of archaeological findings, it was nevertheless in his ethnographic work that he took more intellectual risks. In 1978 he published Beyond the Milky Way, where he formulated a groundbreaking visual anthropological study of the Tukano community and the yagé ritual. This article argues that this work formulated a strategy for a historiography of indigenous art based on gesture, which is worth studying today as a theory and methodology for research in art history.

Keywords: Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, historiography of art, anthropology, indigenous art, yagé, artistic gesture

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