Vast Exhibit Traces Splendors of Ages in the Art of Mexico

Visitors entering the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through Wilshire Boulevard to view the “Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries” exhibition (Oct. 6 to Dec. 29) will be greeted by three sculptures representing the breadth and depth of Mexican culture and the approximately 400 works that make up the show.

Forming a triangle in the open courtyard between the Anderson and Hammer buildings will be a five-ton Olmec head, a sculpture of a feathered serpent and an 11-foot-high stone cross. The head represents Mexico’s oldest culture, the Olmecs; the feathered serpent from Tenochtitlan comes from Mexico’s last great Indian civilization, the Aztecs, and the cross is an example of the art produced in Mexico after the conquest under European and Christian influences.

The apex of the triangle is the feathered serpent head, marking the climax of the pre-Columbian era. Dating from about 1500, it is the symbol of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. Along with the eagle and the jaguar, the serpent is one of the most significant animal symbols in Mexican pre-Columbian art.

This sculpture was unearthed from the atrium of the Mexico City Cathedral in 1881. Serpents had multiple meanings in pre-Columbian America, the period before Columbus’ arrival in the New World, and often functioned as a unifying force between the Earth and the cosmos.

The serpent points the way to the Anderson Building, which visitors will enter through a pyramid-shaped facade. Eight galleries there will be devoted to works found at major sites representing the artistic achievements of Mexico’s pre-Columbian peoples. Exhibited chronologically, the eight sites are La Venta, Izapa, Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, Palenque, El Tajin, Chichen Itza and Tenochtitlan, the latter now known as Mexico City.

The entrance to each gallery will be through an arch adorned with architectural motifs taken from one of these sites. The artifacts and objects range from large free-standing sculptures to hammered gold masks. Many will be mounted on pyramid-shaped pedestals.

Many of these pieces come from the collection of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City or from Mexican regional museums, others from museums and collections in the United States and Europe. Among the latter is a tiny masterpiece rarely seen on this continent, a pendant bell depicting one of the Sun God’s warriors, on loan from the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. Only about 3 inches tall, this gold effigy of the Eagle Warrior, executed by the lost wax process, is an extraordinary example of Mexican craftsmanship.

In the wing behind the galleries and across the courtyard in the Hammer Building, the show will continue chronologically from 1523 to 1810 with works from the viceregal period, extending from the era of Spanish colonization to Mexico’s struggle for independence. The exhibit features a trove of ecclesiastical furnishings, religious paintings and sculptures as well as objects used in everyday life. The period continued to reflect artistic trends from Europe even as a national style and conscience was developing.

The religious art of the period will be exhibited in a “sacristy” that will be installed inside the first gallery of the Hammer Building. It will contain choir stalls, pulpit and altar pieces.

But the rich heritage of these centuries does not lie in the religious art alone. In the adjoining gallery, portraits of the ruling class and its furnishings, including armoires, chairs, tables, glazed table pottery, jugs, and basins offer a glimpse into the highly developed style and aesthetic of Mexican society during these eras.

Among these objects are mural-like biombos (folding screens) attributed to Juan Correa. One depicts Moctezuma, the last Aztec leader, meeting Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Aztec Mexico, and another portrays people of the four continents known at the time. These exquisite screens are also mute testimony to another influence in 17th-Century Mexico, for the biombo concept arrived there via Japan.

The last gallery on the first floor of the Hammer Building will contain 19th- and early 20th-Century paintings and sculptures, illustrating the social and political changes in Mexico after its War of Independence. Evocative portraits and still lifes by Hermenegildo Bustos and sweeping landscapes of the Valley of Mexico executed by the master Jose Maria Velasco give an insight into the 19th-Century painters’ interest in Mexican society, tradition and geography.

The 20th-Century works displayed on the second-floor gallery will probably be the most well-known to most viewers. “Los Tres Grandes”--Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros--as well as Frida Kahlo and Maria Izquierdo, are well represented, as are less known but equally important painters, such as Antonio Ruiz and Fernando Leal.

A series of magnificent works by Mexico’s last great modern master, Rufino Tamayo, reveals his influence within Mexico as well as the international aspects of his work and completes the exhibition. “Lion and Horse” (1942), executed during Tamayo’s 12-year residency in New York, for example, reveals strong parallels with the works of Pablo Picasso.

In addition to the 20th-Century works in the exhibition, two shows from the museum’s own collection will be mounted in the Hammer Building. The first, “Diego Rivera and His Century: Mexican Prints and Drawings” will run from Oct. 6 to Dec. 14. The second, “Manuel Alvarez Bravo: A Portfolio of Photographs,” by the contemporary Mexican photographer who used the camera in a manner similar to Mexican muralists in their treatment of social issues, will be shown from Oct. 6 to Dec. 29.

As a souvenir and reference to the “Splendors” exhibition, a massive, eight-pound catalogue will be available at museum shops ($39.95 softcover, $59.95 for hardcover).

The exhibit’s audio tours will add a literary element with taped commentaries, including excerpts from pre-Columbian and Vice-Regal poetry, with such poets as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. The narrators will be well-known Latino entertainment figures.