‘Archangels’ Sheds Light on the History of Latin America

According to such bellwethers as greeting cards and calendars, angels are in fashion. Maybe in this befuddling time, people feel they need a guardian spirit. Maybe it’s the holidays. In any event, Long Beach’s Museum of Latin American Art has latched onto the trend in “Archangels in the Latin American Tradition: Contemporary Interpretations.”

Viewed in the spirit of the season, it’s a nice spread of some 30 works in various media. Although most are of recent date, one of the more rewarding bits is a nook of historical examples. Folk retablos painted on tin have authentic charm. An anonymous polychromed wood carving from about 1800 depicts St. Raphael carrying his symbolic attribute, a fish. According to legend, the saint used the aquatic creature’s entrails to cure a blind man.

The workmanship of the piece is relatively sophisticated, reminding us that angels were imported to Latin America during the Spanish conquest of the 16th century. Considering what a disastrous mess that was, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the indigenous peoples had mixed feelings about angels. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

St. Michael seems to be Latin America’s favorite, possibly because he’s chief archangel. A painted wood carving of him made by an unknown artist around 1900 is clearly provincial and affectionately done. It has those exaggerations of head, eyes, hands and feet that show native Latin Americans turning the art of Europe into something of their own.

Most of the painting, sculpture and photography on view, however, was made during this decade. Technically that qualifies it as the “contemporary interpretation” advertised by the title. Puzzlingly, almost all of it could have been made 40 years ago. In style, it seems to cling to the memory of such now-historic modern Latin American artists as Rufino Tamayo or Jose Luis Cuevas. There is almost nothing here drawn from sources in graffiti, so-called pulque art or other indigenous Latino forms that have lent excitement and contemporary authenticity to recent Latino art.

Those attributes aren’t obligatory of course. Anyone might be moved and delighted with excellent conservative art. Truth to tell, though, there is just too much work here that is expressively unresolved and technically unfocused. That makes it important to cite some of the exceptions.

Mexico’s Lourdes Almeida’s Polaroid photos transferred to canvas offer the most engaging vision on view. Angels seem to be her thing, and her passion shows. Most works are tiny. Two are life-size nudes proving that--tradition notwithstanding--in Almeida’s imagination angels have gender. The boy is called “Angel Hod (God’s Majesty).” Crowned with a bark coronet and holding a rose, he looks infinitely sweet, strong and amused. The girl is “Angel Netash (God’s Infinite Patience).” Crowned with roses, she’s petite, innocent, solemn and darkly cute. These are angels as Adam and Eve, bride and groom. To prove she’s not a complete naive, Almeida clothes and sculpts her figures in the mysterious shadows of Caravaggio.

“Cage of Tenderness,” by Guatemala’s Luis Gonzalez Palma, imitates a vintage photograph. It depicts a cherubic little boy leaning his head out of a window, with his baby wings poking up expectantly. That the kid is so obviously a real street waif gives the work a tough, poignant edge.

The only foray into installation art here is by Mexico’s Betsabee Romero. A three-sided rectangular black box, it contains seven suspended coronets of dead flowers, spot-lit from above. Cast circles illuminate the names of seven angels lettered on the floor. Simple and direct, it’s an elegy for absent angels.

No less effective for being in traditional media, Nahum Zenil, another Mexican artist, shows a tightly drawn, bellicose St. Michael. Looking like a squat biblical warrior, he brandishes a sword and holds a penis impaled on his long-staffed cross. Cuban Jorge Pardo’s “The Weight of Reason” is a genuinely lyrical vision from a private world. His countryman Ramon Alejandro’s “Jacob’s Ladder” is an ominous surreal landscape of odd, threatening forms.

The exhibition curator was MLAA’s director of exhibitions, Cynthia MacMullin.

* Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach; to Jan. 4, closed Mondays, (562) 437-1689.