The Road Home

The moment you step into “The Road to Aztlan: Art From a Mythic Homeland,” you know you’re in for something different. Right inside the entrance, where ambitious exhibitions like this regularly position outstanding examples of what’s to come, sits a big chunk of basalt whose silhouette resembles a misshapen sea lion. Carved to depict the tip of a rattlesnake’s tail, with ears of corn replacing some of its scales, the 700-year-old sculptural fragment is a terrific emblem for an exhibition that travels close to the ground, laying out a wealth of extraordinary objects to tell a story as intriguing as it is awe-inspiring.

“The Road to Aztlan” takes viewers on a serpentine journey that spans three millenniums as it winds its way over a large part of Mexico and much of the American Southwest. Weaving together history and myth, this generally adventuresome exhibition, which opened Sunday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, features 250 objects that date from approximately 900 BC to the present, including fantastic ceramic bowls, figures, necklaces, tools, calendars, maps, serapes and religious images and icons, as well as a far less impressive selection of contemporary artworks.

Organized by Virginia M. Fields, curator of pre-Columbian art, and independent curator Victor Zamudio-Taylor, it brings together a wildly diverse range of utilitarian items, ceremonial objects and recent pieces to outline some of the ways a single idea has functioned as a potent social force throughout history, capturing the imaginations of various peoples as they have adapted it to serve their own purposes.

The idea at the heart of the show is Aztlan, which, according to Aztec mythology, is an ancestral homeland, “the place of the herons” or “the place of whiteness.” As the story goes, the deity Huitzilopochtli guided a group of followers south from this paradisiacal island, where they endured years of hardship and homelessness before settling, in 1325, in Tenochtitlan--the capital of their empire and today’s Mexico City.

In the 15th century, the ruler Moctezuma I sent emissaries to locate the legendary place in the north. After being turned into birds on their magical journey, they arrived in Aztlan and were greeted by Huitzilopochtli’s mother, the goddess Coatlicue. She presented them with a wealth of roses, tomatoes, chilies, cobs of corn, blankets and loincloths, which they carried back to the capital and enshrined in a temple.

The first section of the three-part exhibition presents many artifacts that actually traveled along trade routes similar to those so fancifully described in the tale of the emissaries’ trip to Aztlan. By far the largest section of the show, its 177 objects fill seven galleries and account for more than 70% of the works displayed. All were made between 900 BC and AD 1521.

In the first gallery, similar objects from far-flung communities are juxtaposed. Eleven tiny copper bells, crafted in western Mexico about 1,000 years ago but found as far away as southern Arizona, reveal that desirable items made their way north via trade. Likewise, pendants, knife handles and bone scrapers found in Tenochtitlan and what is now the American Southwest have been inlaid with turquoise mined in the Four Corners area.

The greatest continuity is represented by a pair of Olmec ax heads, carved from jadeite in the 8th to 6th centuries BC, and three remarkably similar stone ones, made in Arizona more than 2,000 years later. Other vitrines, displaying vessels decorated with images of parrots, turkeys, horned serpents, twins and complex geometric configurations, outline the stylistic differences that distinguish various peoples’ treatment of similar myths and themes.

The remaining six galleries in this part of the exhibition are organized geographically. Each features outstanding examples of pottery, jewelry and tools from a distinct culture, including the Hohokam of southern Arizona; the Mimbres of southern New Mexico; the ancestral Pueblo peoples of the Four Corners area; the polity of Casas Grandes in Chihuahua; a broad region of west Mexico (whose inhabitants were probably middlemen on the north-south trade route); and Tenochtitlan, Tula and Oaxaca. Providing the basis for fascinating comparisons and contrasts, these displays are the high point of the show.

It’s shocking to step into the next gallery, which presents 30 works from the colonial era (1521-1848), including paintings of Catholic saints and historical subjects as well as odd, often outlandish fusions of indigenous materials and European art forms.

In the 16th century, after the Spanish conquistadors invaded and quickly sacked Tenochtitlan, the myth of Aztlan’s fertile lands fueled their appetite for further conquests. Beginning in 1539, numerous expeditions set out to the rumored utopia in the north. In search of the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, whose streets were supposedly paved with silver, they arrived at the Zuni pueblos of western New Mexico. By 1598, the colonialists had claimed for Spain what is now the southwestern United States.

This part of the show, which includes just over 10% of its works, reveals that when cultures collide, what comes out of the mix is significantly different from both elements that went into it. Made with hummingbird feathers, a 16th century portrait of St. Joseph and an image of the Madonna and Child hint at the odd hybridization that takes place when two radically different traditions overlap.

Likewise, a painting of St. Michael on a stretched hide combines Christian imagery with the materials and techniques of Indian shield-making. The result falls awkwardly between icon and tool.

Numerous retablos and crudely carved wood figures also look tentative and iffy. Although they resemble works by outsider artists, they lack the vigor of unself-conscious art. In contrast, three gorgeous serapes, made with wool from Spanish sheep, are breathtakingly elegant in their sophisticated patterning. In a gallery that bristles with the anxiety of unsettled contradictions, they embody a calm resolve that is positively aristocratic.

The final gallery skips ahead to the 20th century. Although the concept of Aztlan reemerged in the 1960s during the Mexican American civil rights movement, only two posters (by Rupert Garcia and Louie “the Foot” Gonzalez) from this populist endeavor are included among the 43 works of contemporary art.

Unlike the previous sections, whose objects were made to be used--and were never meant to be displayed in museums--most of the contemporary works only make sense in an institutional setting. An officious, academic quality colors this part of the show, which seems to be more interested in offering obvious historical commentary than in making history.

Exceptions to this dispiriting tendency include exquisite ceramic vessels based on historical designs by Maria Martinez, Juan Quezada Celado, Lucy M. Lewis, Al Qoyawayma and others. Also, the artists who employ a Pop idiom, including Luis Jimenez, David Avalos, Enrique Chagoya and Gilbert (Magu) Sanchez Lujan, manage to infuse some edgy energy into an otherwise conservative selection of works. Although centuries separate their art and the artifacts in the preceding galleries, both sets of work turn away from grand abstractions to deliver everyday pleasures rooted in the ordinary world.

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* “The Road to Aztlan: Art From a Mythic Homeland,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Open Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, noon-8 p.m.; Fridays, noon-9 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Adults $7; seniors and students, $5; children 6-17, $1. Through Aug. 26. (323) 857-6000.