In Quito's new Museo del Alabado I found the antidote to the dead, self-righteous statuettes of the colonial Catholic Church. The name literally translates to "Museum of the Praised" and is filled with hundreds of pieces from Ecuador's prehistory unearthed in archeological excavations and set on display beneath spotlights of awe. These clay and stone pieces were more alive to me than the porcelain virgins and saints that I had encountered all morning during my tour of the city's churches and convents. Where the eyes of the saints were uplifted in an unattainable extasis and painted with the intention to appear as realistic as possible (somehow always falling short and leading to a creepy, zombic and less-than-human effect); The several-thousand-year-old pieces carved the abstraction of the human soul.
above: Valdivia 4000 a.C. - 1500 a.C
Carchi-Pasto 750 d.C - 1550 d.C
Valdivia 4000 a.C - 1500 a.C
La Tolita 350 a.C - 350 d.C
Valdivia 4000 a.C. - 1500 a.C "This ancestor with six faces, four facing in the cardinal directions, is itself a model of the cosmos."
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