 |
|
|
|
Francesco Pellizzi studied the Classics and Comparative Religions at the University of Rome, and
Anthropology at the E.P.H.E.S.S., in Paris. He wrote a dissertation on the "Jurupari" ritual-mythological
complex of the North-West Amazon Basin, under the direction of Claude Lévi-Strauss
(D. Litt., Rome, 1966). He was then a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University (1967-69: M.A., Social
Anthropology,1969), and joined the Harvard Chiapas Project, carrying out fieldwork among the Maya people
of the Chiapas Highlands, in Southern Mexico (1969-72) and as Teaching Fellow (1973-4). Since 1974,
he has been an Associate in Middle American Ethnology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
In 1981, he co-founded there the journal RES - Anthropology and Aesthetics, dedicated to the
multidisciplinary study of art and cult objects, of which he has been the Editor since 1983. Founder and editor (with Associate Editor Joseph Rykwert), for Cambridge University Press, of the book series RES Monographs in Anthropology and Aesthetics (1984-2002). Editorial Coordinator, for the Menil Foundation, Houston (since 1991), of the multi-volume project The Image of the Black in Western Art. Editorial Counsel, in the 1980s, of Normal and Co-founder and Associate Editor of XXIst Century, two art and literature magazines. Organized two international anthropological conferences: "Las Civilizaciones Indigenas de Chiapas en el Mundo Contemporaneo"(San las Casas, Mexico,1974; published by America Indigena, 1982) and "Ethnicities and Nations: Pattern of Inter-Cultural Relations in Latin America, South East Asia and the Pacific"; Houston, Texas 1983; published by University of Texas Press, 1987), and a "RES" multidisciplinary one Tradition, Translation, Treason (New York, Columbia University, 1995). Francesco has been engaged, in various capacities, with questions of "Tribal" and "Contemporary" arts: as an editor, scholar and critic, as a trustee of the Menil Collection and of the Rothko Chapel (Houston, Texas: 1977-present), as a member of the "Committee for Exhibitions" of the New York Public Library, and also as a collector. He has written essays on artists such as De Maria, Marden, Clemente, Fischl, Basquiat, Galan, Taaffe, Venegas, Smith, Beuys, Cemin, Lezama and, more generally, on "Primitivism" and other aspects of modern art in Europe and the Americas, for periodicals such as Artforum, Parkett, African Arts, Curare, etc., and catalogues for museums such as the Guggenheim (New York), MARCO (Monterrey),The Arts Club of Chicago, the Witte de Witt (Rotterdam), the Maasricht Museum, The Contemporary Art museum of Trento, among others. For extensive periods, over the past thirty years, he has conducted research in Mexico on various aspects of religion, shamanism, ethnic identity, politics, etc., principally among the Maya people, but also in the States of Oaxaca and, especially, Morelos. In Chiapas, he has promoted the creation of the Pellizzi Collection of Chiapas Weaving, now a museum (featured in one whole issue of Artes de Mexico), and encouraged the organization and development of the successful native weaving cooperative San Jolobil, integrated by 700 traditional weavers. In the same region he has also sponsored the establishment of the Reserva Biotica "Gertrudes Duby," which has been declared a "State Reserve" by the Congress of the State of Chiapas. |
return to top of page