Katz, Leandro. Leandro Katz: The Catherwood Project, January 15-March 10, 1992.

Exhibition catalog. Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery, Schine Student Center, Syracuse University, No. 27. Wraps, foldsout on four illustrated sides, 3 leaves with six pages laid in. [Frederick Catherwood (1799-1854) and John L. Stephens (1805-1852) were the first English-speaking travelers to explore the Maya region in Mexico. They spread news of their discoveries through Catherwood's drawings. With his camera, Katz followed in Catherwood's footsteps.] Very good with a few crimps.  Summary:

Leandro Katz: The Catherwood Project (January 15–March 10, 1992) is a highly specialized exhibition catalog published by the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery at Syracuse University in conjunction with Light Work. Issued as Number 27 in the gallery's photography publication series, this unique, minimalist object—designed as a square 8vo folder containing loose-leaf text pages and double-sided black-and-white photographs—documents Argentine conceptual artist and filmmaker Leandro Katz’s complex research initiative exploring colonial representation, archaeology, and the Mesoamerican landscape.

Core Themes and Content

• Deconstructing the Imperial Gaze: The core of the catalog examines Katz’s long-term visual project (begun in 1984), in which he painstakingly traced and rephotographed the 1839–1842 Central American expedition routes of explorers John Lloyd Stephens and artist Frederick Catherwood. The text, featuring a critical essay by art historian Susana Torruella Leval, explores how 19th-century Western explorers popularized and romanticized Maya culture through an imperial lens, and how Katz uses contemporary photography to challenge those historic narratives.

• The Aesthetics of Reconstruction: Visually, the catalog highlights Katz's methodology of "visual reconstruction." He sought out Catherwood's exact historical vantage points across ancient sites like Uxmal, Labná, Palenque, and Chichén Itzá. By pairing Catherwood's highly structured 19th-century lithographs with his own modern photographs, Katz exposes the passage of time, the shift from pristine ruins to tourist-heavy locations, and the ways in which historical imagery can distort geographic reality.

• Reflexive Representation: A crucial thematic strand highlighted in the catalog is the concept of artistic intervention. Rather than presenting pure documentary photography, several featured images show Katz’s own hand physically holding Catherwood’s original lithograph up against the modern, real-world ruins. This self-reflexive approach serves as a reminder that Katz, too, is actively participating in the act of constructing an ideological view of Latin America.

• The Intersection of Language and Symbolism: As a conceptual artist and poet, Katz uses the catalog to map the parallels between photographic images and ancient writing systems. The essays connect his photographic investigation of Maya ruins with his broader artistic fixation on semiotics, alphabets, and symbols, examining how the heavily destroyed and fragmented history of Maya hieroglyphs mirrors the shifting, elusive nature of modern historical documentation.

By contextualizing this meticulous ten-year visual odyssey, this archival publication frames The Catherwood Project as a pivotal work of postcolonial conceptual art, illustrating how a contemporary lens can unravel centuries of Western myth-making to uncover the multilayered politics of memory and sight.