David Guss Archive

The David Guss Archive (ADG) was acquired by Colección C&FE in 2017. It comprises an important collection of Ye’kwana art that Guss gathered during his field trips to the Upper Orinoco region in the periods of 1976-1978 and 1982-1984; his field notebooks, recordings, and photographs; the manuscripts, drafts, and original plates of the book To Weave and Sing (1989), a publication about the result of his research in Venezuela; and a small but significant library on indigenous themes.

The nearly 350 pieces collected by Guss and that are part of this archive document an unrepeatable moment in Ye’kwana art, prior to the aesthetic innovations that took place in the following decades.

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David Guss

David M. Guss is an anthropologist and writer who received his Ph.D. from the University of California and has subsequently taught at several North American educational institutions, including Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York), the California Institute of the Arts (Santa Clarita, California) and Tufts University (Boston, Massachusetts).

He has conducted several anthropological research projects in Latin America and the United States. Among these are those carried out during two important trips to Venezuela, in 1976-1978 and 1982-1984, to study the customs, myths and rituals, and artistic manifestations of the Ye’kwana people. From 1994 and for several years, he settled in Bolivia where he studied the effects of colonialism and indigenous celebrations.

David Guss has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including: Tales, Texts and Poems of Interspecies Communication (1985), Walky-Talky (1986), To Weave and Sing (1989) y The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Performance (2000). The last two texts, on Venezuelan themes, have also been published in Caracas: Tejer y cantar (1994), his work on the Ye’kwanas, and El Estado festivo. Raza, etnicidad y nacionalismo como representación cultural (2005). He has also published his poetic and narrative work, as well as poetry translations.

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