Alessandra Russo

Alessandra Russo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University. She specializes in the theory, practice, and display of early modern arts with a special emphasis on artistic dynamics within the context of Iberian colonization. Her work bridges art history, historical anthropology, and global studies, exploring how artifacts encountered and collected during Iberian expansion influenced the development of modern art concepts.

Professor Russo received her training in art history and historical anthropology at the Universitá di Bologna, the Universiteit Leiden, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She has been a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg-Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin and has held visiting positions at ESBA of Genève, the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales where she is an associate member of the Centre de recherches sur les mondes Américains (CERMA).

Her research focuses on the intersection of art, knowledge, and power in the early modern period, particularly examining how the encounter between European and Indigenous artistic practices transformed understandings of art globally. Russo investigates how artifacts from the Americas, Africa, and Asia collected during Iberian expansion contributed to reshaping European artistic concepts, challenging traditional narratives of art history that position Europe as the sole origin of modern art. She explores the role of multilingual dialogues, material exchanges, and visual translations in creating new artistic universes that were neither purely European nor Indigenous but emerged from their encounter.

Professor Russo's publications reveal consistent engagement with global art history, transcultural studies, and the materiality of artistic production. Her work spans diverse topics including feather art, cartography, museum studies, and the theoretical frameworks that shaped artistic production across the Iberian world. A recurring theme is the examination of how objects and images traveled across continents, acquiring new meanings while retaining connections to their places of origin. Her research demonstrates how early modern artistic practices were fundamentally shaped by global encounters rather than developing in isolated national or regional contexts.

• Eleanor Tufts Award of the Society of Iberian and Latin American Art (SIGA) for A New Antiquity: Art and Humanity as Universal (1400-1600)
• Best book award in "theory of art" for Images Take Flight
• Grand Prix du Jury at FILAF for Images Take Flight
• ALAA Book Award Honorable Mention for Images Take Flight

Professor Russo has advised numerous doctoral students at Columbia University whose work explores global art history, colonial Latin America, and Indigenous artistic practices. She leads the research group "Spanish Italy and Iberian Americas," which has received funding from the Getty Foundation for its work on artistic interactions between Spanish Italy and the Iberian Americas in the 16th century. This project has brought together scholars from Italy and Latin America to study artistic connections between these regions, resulting in workshops, symposia, and digital publications that document objects, monuments, maps, and prints.

As a member of the Museum Advisory Committee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Professor Russo contributes to the reinstallation of galleries including the Gallery of Central Europe and the Gallery of Northern Renaissance. Her curatorial work includes the exhibition "El vuelo de las imágenes. Arte plumario en México y Europa. 1300-1700" at the Museo Nacional de Arte and collaboration on "Planète Métisse" at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. She is currently developing an exhibition project "Sebastiano, il Custode del Mondo. Universi artistici a Bologna nel Seicento" alongside her book manuscript on Sebastiano Biavati, the custodian of Ferdinando Cospi's art collections in seventeenth-century Bologna.