Overview
Hugo C. Ikehara-Tsukayama is the Harris Family Curator of the Arts of the Americas at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Before joining Cornell, he was part of the curatorial team reinstalling the permanent collection of the Arts of the Ancient Americas (2021-2204) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). Trained as an anthropological archaeologist, Dr. Ikehara-Tsukayama was also Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile between 2018 and 2020, and Lecturer in Archaeology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú between 2015 and 2018.
Research Focus
Currently, his scholarly research focuses on themes of predation, warriorhood, and ontology in ancient American art, with a special focus on Peru and Ecuador. Previously, as a field archaeologist, he investigated a variety of topics, including ancient warfare, landscapes, social crises, and monumental architecture.
He is also interested in the resonances of ancient American art in contemporary artistic practice and nation-state imagery, which reveals the different ways in which the past permeates into the present.
Awards and Honors
He received the “Llama” award for the best temporary exhibition of 2022 (in the Pre-Republican era category) for: “Vicús: Muerte, transformación y vida” by the Asociación de Curadores del Perú. (https://curadoresdelperu.org/2023/05/08/ganadores-del-premio-nacional-de-curaduria-llama-2022/)
Affiliations
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Publications
Edited volumes and Exhibition Catalogs
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C., Kriss Dawn, and Joanne Pillsbury
2023 Ancient Peruvian Pots: Containing the Divine. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Vol. LXXX, Number 4 (Spring 2023).
Ikehara Tsukayama, Hugo C.
2023 Mundo Vicús: Muerte, transformación y vida. Exhibition catalog. Museo Central. Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
Contreras, Carlos, Gabriela Germana, Hugo Ikehara, Ricardo Kusunoki, and Maria E. Yllia
2022 Nación, imaginar al Perú desde el MUCEN. Exhibition catalog. Museo Central. Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C., and Juan C. Vargas Ruiz (eds.)
2022 Global Perspectives on Landscapes of Warfare. The University of Colorado Press.
Del Valle, Augusto, Hugo Ikehara, Maria Eugenia Yllia, and Ricardo Kusunoki
2018 Conexiones: Catálogo de Colecciones. Exhibition catalog. Museo Central. Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
Vargas Ruiz, Juan Carlos, and Hugo C. Ikehara Tsukayama (eds.)
2017 Boletín de Antropología Universidad de Antioquía Vol.32 (54). Colombia
Selected articles (since 2023)
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
Under review. Moche in the Vicús World. In: A. Boswell, L. Trever, and G. Prieto (eds.) Moche Media: Beyond Art and Politics in Northern Peru. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
Accepted. Hungry Buildings of the Ancient Andes: Art, Creation, and Bodies. World Art. Special number edited by Benjamin Alberti and Christopher Watts.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C., and Amanda Chau
In press. Crafting a Tolita-Tumaco Seated Elder Figure. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
In press. Hunters, Warriors, Rulers: Images of Aggression and Violence from the Peruvian North Coast (1200 BCE-850 CE). Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
In press. “Sociopolitical reorganization in the Andes after Wari and Tiwanaku.” In: M. Aldenderfer, M. Sepúlveda, and E. G. Neves (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of South American Archaeology. Oxford University Press.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
2025 Visualizing the History of Connections in the Ancient American Art Galleries. Perspectives. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Koons, Michele L., Branden Cesare Rizzuto, Lisa Trever, Alicia Boswell, Luis A. Muro Ynoñán, Gabriel Prieto, Carlos Rengifo, Kayeleigh Sharp, Edward Swenson, Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama, Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, Tirza Cotrina Roncal, Richard J. George, Jose M. Capriles, Fuyuki Tokanai, and Augusto Bazán Perez
2024 Moche Chronology of Ancient Peru: Bayesian Assessment of Radiocarbon Dates and Ceramic Styles from North to South. Quaternary International Vol. 703: 82-96.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
2023 The Cupisnique-Chavín Religious Tradition in the Andes. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
Chicoine, David, Hugo Ikehara, and Koichiro Shibata
2023 Beyond Chavín: The First Millennium BCE in the Nepeña Valley. In: R. Burger and J. Nesbitt (eds.) Reconsidering the Chavín Phenomenon in the 21st Century, pp. 207-236. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
2023 Bilder von Kriegern und Kämpfen der Moche (Warrior and Combat Images in Moche). Antike Welt Issue 5.
Ikehara-Tsukayama, Hugo C.
2023 La colección Vicús en el Museo Central. Moneda 193: 56-63. Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.