Meet the Staff: Ancient American Art
Laura Filloy Nadal
Born in Mexico City, Laura Filloy Nadal joined the staff of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 2022. Her current projects include the renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, where she will reenvision the ancient Americas galleries for local and international audiences. In parallel, she is co-curator of the forthcoming exhibition The Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art (2022). Previously, she was a senior conservator and researcher at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, where she studied the cultural biography of objects—how they were made and used, and, what they mean. She holds a BA from Mexico’s National School of Conservation, Restoration, and Museography, and earned her MA and PhD in archaeology at the University of Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne.
“From ‘Rich Plumes’ to War Accoutrements: Feathered Objects in the Codex Mendoza and Their Extant Representatives” (with María Olvido Moreno Guzmán), in Mesoamerican Manuscripts: New Scientific Approaches and Interpretations, edited by Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen, Virginia M. Llado-Buisán, and Ludo Snijders, pp. 45–93. The Early Americas: History and Culture, 8. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
“The Importance of Visage, Facial Treatment, and Idiosyncratic Traits in Maya Royal Portraiture during the Reign of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque, 615–683 CE,” in Social Skins of the Head, edited by Vera Tiesler and María Cecilia Lozada, pp. 109–28. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018.
“The Lady of Chalma” (with Leonardo López Luján), in The Significance of Small Things: Essays in Honour of Diana Fane, edited by Luisa Elena Alcalá and Ken Moser, pp. 103–11. Madrid: El Viso, 2018.
“Forest of Jade: Luxury Arts and Symbols of Excellence among the Ancient Peoples of Mesoamerica,” in Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, pp. 67–78. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2017.
“Precious Feathers and Fancy Fifteenth-Century Feathered Shields” (with María Olvido Moreno Guzmán), in Rethinking the Aztec Economy, edited by Deborah L. Nichols, Frances F. Berdan and Michael E. Smith, pp. 156–94. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2017.
“Mesoamerican Archaeological Textiles, Materials, Techniques, and Contexts,” in PreColumbian Textile Conference VII / Jornadas de Textiles Precolombinos VII, Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen, 2016, edited by Lena Bjerregaard and Ann Peters, pp. 7–39. Lincoln: Zea Books, University of Nebraska Lincoln Libraries, 2017.
“Lustrous Surfaces and Shades of Green: Value and Meaning in Three Mesoamerican Lapidary Ensembles from Teotihuacan, Palenque, and La Venta,” in Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Andean South America, edited by Cathy Lynne Costin, pp. 31–62. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2016.
Christine Giuntini
Christine Giuntini is responsible for textile and organic artifact conservation in the department. She has created or refined the mounting and exhibition techniques for flat and complex artifacts in more than thirty Museum exhibitions. Her research focuses on the study of materials and methods of manufacture of African and Indonesian ethnographic textiles; archaeological feather works and fabrics from South America; and composite works from Africa, Oceania, and the New World. She has contributed to the Museum's publications, including technical essays for The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design without End, (2008) and Peruvian Featherworks: Art of the Precolumbian Era.
Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama
Born in Lima (Peru), Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama earned his Ph.D. in Archaeology at the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining MCRW, where he is working on the reinstallation of the Ancient Americas collection, he was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Pont. Univ. Católica de Chile. At the Met, he was the lead curator of the installation “Containing the Divine: Peru” and the co-author of the associated publication in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v.80, no. 4 (Spring, 2023). Outside the Met, he has curated several exhibitions, including “Vicús: Muerte, transformación y vida,” awarded with the 2022 Premio Nacional de Curaduría by Asociación de Curadores del Perú. He has published widely, including the edited volume “Global Perspectives on Landscapes of Warfare” (2022).
"The Cupisnique-Chavín Religious Tradition in the Andes." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2023.
"Beyond Chavín: The Millennium BC in the Nepeña Valley" (with David Chicoine and Koichiro Shibata). In: Reconsidering the Chavín Phenomenon in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Richard L. Burger and Jason Nesbitt. Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023.
“Containing the Divine: Ancient Peruvian Pots” (with Dawn Kriss and Joanne Pillsbury). The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v.80, no. 4 (Spring, 2023).
Vicús: muerte, transformación y vida. Lima: Museo Central, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, 2023.
Global Perspectives on Landscapes of Warfare (with Juan C. Vargas-Ruiz, eds). Louisville: The University Press of Colorado, 2022.
Nación, imaginar al Perú desde el MUCEN (with Carlos Contreras, Gabriela Germaná, Ricardo Kusunoki, and Maria Eugenia Yllia). Lima: Museo Central, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, 2022.
Alisa LaGamma
Born in Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Alisa LaGamma spent her formative years in sub-Saharan Africa. Graduate studies in African art history at Columbia University led her to undertake research in southern Gabon on the living tradition of Punu masks that culminated in her 1995 dissertation “The Art of the Punu Mukudj Masquerade: Portrait of an Equatorial Society.” A curator at the Metropolitan since 1996, her exhibition projects devoted to topics ranging from authorship to portraiture have sought to anchor African art historically and conceptually. In 2010 she was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership and in 2012 the Bard Graduate Center recognized her work with the Iris Award for Outstanding Scholarship.
LaGamma, Alisa. Eternal Ancestors: The Art of the Central African Reliquary (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2007).
———. Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2011).
———. Kongo: Power and Majesty (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2015).
———. Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2020).
———. "Silenced Mbembe Muses." Metropolitan Museum Journal 48 (2013): 143–160.
Damien Marzocchi
Matthew Noiseux
Matthew Noiseux began his career at the Museum working as part of the staff of the Department of Greek and Roman Art on the reinstallation of the Greek and Roman galleries, which opened in April 2007. He joined the staff of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in 2013. He holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MS from Columbia University.
Raychelle Osnato
Raychelle Osnato joined the department in 2020 to implement and construct new storage housing for the collection during the renovation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. She received her BA in Art Conservation and Art History at the University of Delaware in 2019. She was previously a conservation assistant at the RISD Museum where she treated Samurai artifacts, ceramics, and decorative art objects for exhibitions including, Raid the Icebox Now and Daimyo Culture in Peacetime. She has past experience in paintings conservation at Winterthur Museum and archaeological conservation of mosaics with the Centro di Conservazione Archeologica (CCA) in Italy.
Joanne Pillsbury
A specialist in the art and archaeology of the ancient Americas, Joanne Pillsbury (PhD, Columbia University) was previously associate director of the Getty Research Institute and director of Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She has published widely, including Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900; the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award recipient Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks; and Past Presented: Archaeological Illustration and the Ancient Americas, which was awarded the Association for Latin American Art Book Award. Her 2017 exhibition catalogue, Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas (prepared with Timothy Potts and Kim Richter), was the winner of a PROSE Award for Excellence.
- MetPublications: Selected Publications by Joanne Pillsbury
- Academia.edu: Publications by Joanne Pillsbury
Lauren Posada
Lauren Posada joined the department in the fall of 2019 as a preventive conservator during the renovation and reinstallation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. With a specialization in textiles, she previously worked as a conservator at the Museum at FIT focusing on the treatment, care, and exhibition of their historic costume collection. Lauren received her Master of Arts in fashion and textile studies with a concentration in conservation and collections care from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and a BFA from Pratt Institute.
David Rhoads
David Rhoads is responsible for the proper care and display of the department's collection. He joined the Museum in 2015, after having previously held the position of associate preparator at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He received his BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2010.
Doris Zhao
Doris Zhao joined the department in 2018 to undertake research relating to the renovation and reinstallation of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. She was previously the curatorial assistant at The Studio Museum in Harlem, where she organized exhibitions including Harlem Postcards: Wish You Were Here; Regarding the Figure; and Surface Area: Selections from the Permanent Collection. In addition, she was the co-curator of a curious blindness at The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery and has contributed essays to various publications, including Prospect 5: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp; Fictions; and Black Refractions: Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem.