Alena Robin
Alena Robin, Department Chair, Associate Professor (Art History)
Postdoctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal, 2009
Ph.D., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), 2007
M.A., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), 2002
B.A., McGill University, 1997
Research
Research Interests
My research focuses on religious art in New Spain (Colonial Mexico). Many of my publications and my current research are related to the artistic representation of the Passion of Christ in Colonial Mexico, through different case studies. I have developed knowledge regarding the circulation and appropriation of European prints that have been used by Colonial painters for inspiration. Likewise, I have investigated the reception of specific images of Christ, in print, painting and sculpture, which offered a representation of suffering that I explain through different first-hand historical documents.
My most significant contributions are in relation to the devotion of the Way of the Cross, both in sculpture, painting and in architecture, through a combined approach of patronage and iconography. My book addresses the devotion and patronage of the Way of the Cross in New Spain, more specifically the chapels that were built in Mexico City at the end of the seventeenth century. The book made a valuable contribution to Colonial art and architecture history by recreating, with visual and documentary evidence, buildings that were destroyed in the nineteenth century.
Current Projects
My current book project explores the life and work of the eighteenth-century artist Antonio Enríquez, an almost forgotten painter of the Mexican Colonial school of painting working mainly in Guadalajara, through dedicated archival research and meticulous analysis of his paintings. The project started with an intriguing cycle of paintings illustrating the Way of the Cross, but it resulted in a wider knowledge of the cultural and intellectual environment of Guadalajara in mid eighteenth century. As I was looking for information on Antonio Enríquez, I also paid attention to another painter sharing the last name, Nicolás Enríquez.
My research focus has recently moved to the presence of art from Latin America in Canada, and the Latino diaspora in the country. My article entitled “Mapping the Presence of Latin American Art in Canadian Museums and Universities,” gave me the opportunity to address my field, art from Latin America, but from a Canadian perspective, therefore allowing me to go beyond the area I usually research. This article is the ground for an ongoing research project. It examines the presence of art from Latin America in Canada, from the perspective of the history of collections and exhibitions. It also addresses the institutions that support the field in Canada, and issues of immigration from Latin America to Canada. Furthermore, it considers art from Latin America in Canada from a hemispheric perspective, connecting not only Canada to Latin America, but also taking into account relations with the United States, and how the Canadian relations with Latin America are sometimes different from the American ones.
Selected Publications
Books
Co-editor with Maria del Carmen Suescun Pozas. Latin America Made in Canada. Ottawa: Lugar Común Editorial, forthcoming 2021.
Alena Robin, Las capillas del Vía Crucis de la ciudad de México: arte, patrocinio y sacralización del espacio. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas/ UNAM, 2014, 309 pp. ISBN 978-607-02-6076-6.
Journals, special issue
Co-editor with Analays Alvarez Hernandez, “Latin American Art(ists) from/in Canada: Expanding Narratives, Territories, and Perspectives,” Dialogues Section, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (LALVC), forthcoming. https://online.ucpress.edu/lalvc
Co-editor with Lauren Beck, “Latin American Art, Visual and Material Culture in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Arts, no. 10 (2021). https://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/latin_american_art_eighteenth_century
Co-editor with Luis de Moura Sobral, “Contemporary Scholarship on Latin American Art,” RACAR (Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review), 38, no. 2 (2013). https://www.racar-racar.com/2010-2020.html
Articles, Book Chapters, and Conference Proceedings
“Colonial Art from Spanish America in Québec,” in “Latin American Art from/in Canada: Challenging and Expanding Narratives and Territories,” Dialogue Section, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (LALVC), forthcoming.
“The Passion of Christ in the New World,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion and the Arts in the West: Renaissance to the Present, forthcoming.
“Antonio Enríquez, Felipe Pastor y San Ángel predicando: Un cuadro desconocido en la colección del Museo Regional de Guadalajara,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 117 (2020): 259-287. https://doi.org/10.22201/iie.18703062e.2020.117.2733
“Colores de Latinoamérica: Teaching Latin American Art in London, Ontario,” International Journal of Education & the Arts, no. 21 (2020): 1-26. http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea21n16.
“Perspectivas transatlánticas de una serie pasionaria del pintor novohispano José de Ibarra (1685-1756),” Philostrato. Revista de Historia y Arte, no. 6 (2019): 54-80. https://doi.org/10.25293/philostrato.2019.08
“Mapping the Presence of Latin American Art in Canadian Museums and Universities,” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 1, no. 2 (April 2019): 33-57. https://doi.org/10.1525/lavc.2019.120004
“Antonio Enríquez. Su obra pictórica en las regiones culturales de Jalisco,” Actas del Tercer Coloquio Interdisciplinar: Regiones culturales: sur, norte, costa, y centro. Museo Regional de Guadalajara hacia su Centenario. 1918-2018 (Guadalajara: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2018), 283-297.
“Voices from the Archives. The Painter's Profession in Mexico City in 1735: Phelipe Chacón, José de Ibarra and Nicolás Enríquez in the Royal Mint,” Agents of Space: Eighteenth-Century Art, Architecture and Visual Culture, ed. Christina Smylitopoulos (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 174-191. ISBN: 978-1-4438-8883-7.
“El Vía Crucis del Museo Regional de Guadalajara y los avatares del tiempo,” Actas del Primer Coloquio Interdisciplinar: Museo Regional de Guadalajara hacia su Centenario. 1918-2018 (Guadalajara: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2015), 35-46.
“A Nazarene in the Nude: Questions of Representation in Devotional Images of New Spain,” thematic issue on “Living Images”, Horti Hesperidum, studi di storia del collezionismo e della storiografia artistic, 1, no. 1 (2015): 201-237. http://issuu.com/horti-hesperidum/docs/26.a.robin/50?e=2595352/32227327
“‘Trampantojo a lo divino’: El Nazareno del Hospital de Jesús en Pennsylvania,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 107 (2015): 157-171. https://doi.org/10.22201/iie.18703062e.2015.107.2557
“Vía Crucis de pintura e imágenes de bulto en Nueva España: reflexiones sobre la complementariedad de una devoción,” Atrio, Revista de historia del arte, no. 19 (2013): 107-116. http://issuu.com/atrio.historiadelarte/docs/atrio_19/1
“Vía Crucis y series pasionarias en los virreinatos latinoamericanos”, Goya, no. 339 (2012): 130-145.
“La Pasión de Cristo según José de Alcíbar (Museo de Arte Sacro, Chihuahua, México)”, Via Spiritus, Revista de História da Espiritualidade e do Sentimento Religioso, no. 17 (2010): 197-228. http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/9184.pdf
“El “Monte”: noticias de unos grupos escultóricos para la capilla del Calvario de la ciudad de México,” Encrucijada, Boletín del seminario de Escultura del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas/ UNAM, no. 1 (2008): 14-25. http://www.esteticas.unam.mx/cactividades/actividades/revista/index.html
“El Museo nacional de la Muerte,” UIC. Foro multidisciplinario de la Universidad Intercontinental, no. 7 (2008): 48-53.
“The Wound on Christ’s Back in New Spain,” RACAR (Revue d’art canadienne/Canadian Art Review), no. 1-2 (2007): 79-93. https://www.racar-racar.com/uploads/5/7/7/4/57749791/_racar_32_1_2_08_robin.pdf
“El retablo de Xaltocán, las Imágenes de Jerónimo Nadal y la Monja de Ágreda,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 88 (2006): 53-70. http://www.analesiie.unam.mx/pdf/88_53-70.pdf
Awards, Grands and Honours
Teaching
PhD Supervisions
María Laura Flores Barba, Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, in progress.
Ayelet Ishai, Affect and Feminist Storytelling in Three Spanish American Novels: Leonora by Elena Poniatowska, De un salto descabalga la reina by Carmen Boullosa, and El infinito en la palma de la mano by Gioconda Belli, Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2020.
Iván Baruj Clavelina Vázquez, La recepción del Quijote en Canadá: prensa, imagen y literatura, Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2019.
Jimena Zambrano, Confluencias interartísticas entre la pintura y la literatura hispánica moderna, Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2016.
(Co-supervisor with Cody Barteet) Mohammed Jamil Afana, La identidad cultural a través del espacio urbano y arquitectónico en la ciudad de México: El caso de la Villa de Guadalupe, Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2016.
Edgar Yánez Zapata, Estética urbana de una polarización. Transformaciones de la ciudad de Caracas en la Revolución Bolivariana (1999-2014), Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2015.
MA Supervisions
Jimena Zambrano, Acercamiento interartístico a la pintura de género de Murillo y el pícaro literario del Siglo de Oro. Personajes que reflejan una realidad social, M.A. in Hispanic Studies, Western University, 2012.
Courses
AH 2692H/ CLC 2129F/ SP 2102F, Mexico City
SP 2210/ CLC2293/ VA3394, The Work of Art and its Texts
SP 2216, Exploring Hispanic Culture
SP3501, Hispanic Visual Arts and Texts
SP 4531, Masters and Masterpieces: Elena Poniatowska and Post-Revolution Mexican Art
SP9100, Migration and Ethnic Relations in Colonial Latin American Art (ca. 1520-1810)
SP9629, Artistic Literature of the Hispanic Baroque
SP9652, Sacred Images and Places of Worship
SP9653, Historiography of Painting in New Spain
SP 9656, Elena Poniatowska and Post-Revolution Mexican Art
