EL QUINTO SOL: TENOCHTITLAN AND TLATELOLCO RECENT FINDINGS
These works imply a very different worldview than the one most of us share, despite all our differences. “Reality” for these people seems to have been far more fluid–the animal, human, and spirit worlds were seen not only as interdependent but as interchangeable. Abstract designs take on the quality of secret languages, as vivid as the most realistic sculpture. When a modern artist takes the viewer on a similar flight of fancy–as the surrealists did, say–we sense we’re peering into a subjective world, a dream state, an image in someone’s mind. But in this work objects, however abstract, directly invoke actual things: a ceramic turtle vessel is far from a realistic representation of a turtle yet has a powerful physicality. This is an objective world of animal-like deities and abstract patterns that contain the power to bring sun and rain; a simple figurine of an animal with its offspring can suggest eternal cycles of death and rebirth.
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Perhaps even stranger is a censer with a three-legged zoomorphic stand covered with geometrical designs and forms suggesting animal faces. One of its legs ends in three toes, the other two in hooves–what manner of beast is this? Apparently two different kinds of animals, one likely a bird, support a container for burning incense–perhaps a sign of the Aztecs’ impulse to include all the known world in the Templo Mayor caches.
Just at that moment two young boys came in; one had been there before and was offering his friend a tour. He pointed to the temple area, and the first thing he said was, “This is where they had the sacrifices.” At that moment I realized it’s much better to present previously underrepresented history and art imperfectly than to ignore it altogether. If enough of the truth is made available, people who really care about truth, like children, will quickly learn it all.
