ELLENSBURG — The Central Washington University Department of Art + Design will host a lecture by art historian Dr. Asiel Sepúlveda on Thursday, according to an announcement from the university. Titled “The Plantation’s Smokescreens: Art and Vision in Nineteenth-Century Cuba,” the talk will explore how lithographic artists crafted new ways of seeing the Cuban landscape during the 19th century. 

Sepúlveda will focus the conversation on artistic portrayals of smokestacks and steam clouds emerging from sugar plantations, according to the announcement. Using close readings of lithographs and text written by sugar planters, he will reveal how the Caribbean plantation became a site of artistic admiration, where one could witness the aesthetics of industrial modernity. The talk will illustrate how the creation of a “plantation aesthetic” has been used to mask the violence of slavery and its legacy. 

Sepúlveda is an Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Babson College in Massachusetts. His research focuses on print media and early advertising in Latin America and the Caribbean. Sepúlveda received his doctorate from Southern Methodist University. 

The talk will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. and be screened for viewers in Randall Hall room 117. It will also be available online via Zoom, according to the announcement. 

    This lithograph by Frédéric Mialhe, a French-born Cuban artist, shows smoke rising from plantations near Havana, Cuba. It’s an example Dr. Asiel Sepúlveda will use in his lecture Thursday on Industrial Revolution-era Cuban art.