Pre-Columbian Art
By Fayez Barakat
THE BARAKAT GALLERY A CATALOGUE OF THE COLLECTION VOLUME
II
When I opened a gallery devoted to ancient
art in the heart of the most modern city in the world, I knew I was facing
a challenge. Los Angeles is the metropolis of the future and the Barakat
Gallery focuses on the treasures of the past. In the Holy Land, where
my family has done business for generations, artifacts have a context
that people understand they seem a logical part of the landscape,
footnotes to the history of the place. In Los Angeles, I was warned, the
precious relics of the past would lose their meaning amidst all the neon
and asphalt. What I understood when I came here, and what the continued
success of the Barakat Gallery has proven, is that fine antiquities radiate
a tangible aura of experience something I call Energy
that makes them beautiful and meaningful in any setting. Energy
is the intrinsic magnetism that accumulates around an object through the
ages. It has to do with where the object has been, who made it, who used
it, who touched it or admired it as we can still do today. A certain sensitivity
is needed to perceive Energy, but if an individual possesses the gift,
then an artifact becomes a link, a pathway directly back to an earlier
time, to other lives, maybe not completely known or understood, but definitely
real. I had always been attracted to Biblical and Classical antiquities
for this reason, but nothing in my previous experience prepared me for
the surprising, exotic, intimate, and sometimes barbaric world that Pre-Columbian
art reveals.
It was inevitable for me to fall under the powerful
spell of Meso-American antiquities. West Coast collectors assembling important
holdings of Pre-Columbian art for decades, and there was great potential
to build a truly remarkable collection from what was still in private
hands. But when I first came to Beverly Hills, the art of the New World
was exactly that for me new. Pre-Columbian was terra incognita,
an unexplored part of the fascinating realm of the past. I felt like a
conquistador standing on the edge of an unknown continent awestruck,
excited, and determined to discover its farthest boundaries. As I was
exposed more and more to Pre-Columbian pieces of high quality, my enthusiasm
began to increase without limits. I responded to the incredible Energy
of the art, to its vitality, its mystery, to its strength, even to its
humor. Assembling a major representative group of Pre-Columbian art works
became first a passion with me, then an obsession. The result of that
obsession of four years of scholarship, acquisition and appreciation
is what this catalogue is meant to share.
It is a catalogue I believe, like no other. In addition
to the photographs, the necessary information about what an object is,
how it fits in culturally and chronologically, is there. The data is offered
in good faith it is accurate to the very best of my knowledge and
is supported by available records and by the opinions of many experts
in the field. However, one thing that formal study of Pre-Columbian art
has taught me, is that almost everybody has a different outlook on the
topic. The scholarly exploration of Ancient Meso-America is still a relatively
new discipline, and contradictions of opinion abound about where pieces
originated, what they were used for and what they mean. A very large part
of what we know is based on speculation, but that is always the case with
antiquities.
Imagination must fill in the gaps. I accept that there
may be inaccuracies, and I trust that people with other opinions will
be happy to share them with me. None of these things, of course, set this
work apart from others of its kind. However, accompanying each object
is a short paragraph an expression, a musing about how the
artifacts strike me personally, about their aura, their Energy.
I have held each and every one of these pieces in my hands and I have
responded to it in an analytical and frequently personal way. I have felt
the lifeblood of vanished cultures surging through the creative endeavors
they have left behind, and it is as if the artworks themselves were alive
and capable of speech. These few lines are statements about the impression
an artwork inspires, reflections on the mood a pieces evokes, and in no
way attempt to be the last word on an objects history or presence.
Every person perceives Energy slightly differently, and the text
here is merely a means of allowing the reader to view each artifact in
a new light.
One final word. This is a commercial catalogue, a permanent
record of a transient collection of art treasures. Pieces will find new
homes and others will be acquired. I am passionate about the past, but
I am also generous about it. I feel it is there to be shared, part of
the collective experience of the entire human race. The main purpose of
this volume is to make the pleasure that Pre-Columbian art gives available
to a wider audience. If it achieves that goal, then I will have successfully
met my challenges.
FAYEZ BARAKAT
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