Sydney Barofsky
PhD Student: Art of the Ancient Americas
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About
Sydney Barofsky is PhD student working on art of the ancient Americas, currently focusing on the topic of surface as it relates to ceramics from West Mexico. Their ongoing dissertation research explores an eco-cosmological consideration of surfaces, considering how the surface treatment of ceramics from West Mexico builds on the material, relational, and aesthetic aspects of worldmaking and its impacts on the broader social order of the region. Sydney is also interested in the afterlives of Mesoamerican objects often appropriated in modern and contemporary art. They are more broadly interested in methods such as Indigenous epistemologies, aesthetics, humanism, ecology, and phenomenology. Sydney has held curatorial, research, and preservation-related positions at South Asia Institute, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Chicano Murals for Colorado Project.
Selected Publications
A Dog with Two ‘Tales’: Visualizing Reciprocity in West Mexican Canine Ceramics (edited volume chapter, forthcoming)
Felipe Baeza, Gente del Occidente de México (2017–2019) – Ancient Americas Appropriated, 2025
Education
MA Art History with a Museum Studies concentration, University of Denver, 2023
Selected Presentations
Fusing Body Fusing Commodity: Exploring Agency in the Wayward Subjects of Felipe Baeza’s Gente del Occidente de Mexico series (CAA 113th Annual Conference, 2025)
More than a Meal: Intimacy in Artistic Renditions of Animals in Central Jalisco and Greater West Mexico (SAA 90th Annual Conference, 2025)
Clay Companions: The Burnishing of Colima Dog Ceramics and Canine Care (Midwest Art Historical Society Annual Conference, 2023)