No acabarán mis flores, 2013

Nuremberg Map of Tenochtitlan, 2013

In 1521, a letter and two maps arrived in Spain for the Spanish king Charles V. This was the second of five letters that the conquistador Hernán Cortés sent describing the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán, which he and his crew had discovered and were near to conquering. One map was a detailed illustration of the city, and the other a sketch of the nearby Gulf of Mexico coast. The map of the city appears to reflect the conquistador’s view of Tenochtitlán as an enchanted metropolis: a jewel rising up from the center of an azure lake, housing an ordered, wealthy civilization, who were nevertheless misled in their predilection for heathen ritual sacrifice instead of enlightened Christianity. 

This depiction of Tenochtitlán served to justify the expensive Spanish colonial efforts, but not only to Charles V, the king of Spain. The publication in Nuremberg of the map in 1524, along with the letter’s translation into Latin, also sparked the imagination and sup- port of a large European audience. This map was the first and the most widespread image that Europeans had of Tenochtitlán, and remains one of the few maps we have of the precolonial Aztec empire. 

Some archaeologists now believe that the published map resulted from many copies made on the way from Mexico, through Spain, to Nuremberg, and that the original map was in fact drawn by an indigenous artist. The portrayal of rows of houses and the depiction of the island capital in the center of a circular lake is not only to be found in the European mapping tradition, but also in the Aztec one. The map also contains de- tails that were not mentioned in Cortés’s letters, such as Aztec historical and religious references, which were not understood by Europeans at the time. 

The exhibition space is paved entirely in wood, engraved with the image of the Nuremberg map of Tenochtitlán. The wooden surface is also used as a matrix from which a one-to-one print of the engraved surface is made onto paper. The Atlas, a bound compilation of the prints. 
Elements from Chinelo costumes seem to float in the space: a hat, a mask, some costumes, and decorative elements.

In colonial times, the Spaniards held splendid parties for Carnival, to which the indigenous population was not invited. They began to celebrate their own parties as satire, parodying the white people by donning pink masks with prominent bearded chins, and exaggerated costumes with ornaments made of cheap materials.

The “Brinco de los Chinelos” is a carnival traditional dance realized in various towns in the state of Morelos in Mexico where the dancers wear costumes depicting traditional, pagan, and popular imagery.

The motifs appearing on the costumes are based on images of the “Codex Tudela”, a colonial-era pictorial document held in the Museo de America in Madrid, it depicts and describes the traditions, celebrations, and rituals of Mexico before the conquest.

Finding Oneself Outside, offers a possible description of a sensation that is central to both the study of history and the experience of encountering an unfamiliar culture. The exhibition’s centerpiece, a specially commissioned inlaid wood floor installation, draws from an early-colonial map of San Pedro Teozacoalco, Mexico, which bears a unique stylistic blend of European maps and Mixtec codices of the sixteenth century. A large-scale sculpture, No solid form can contain you (2010), offers a peculiar visualization of space as a would-be mold turned inside out—panels cast from a statue of Coatlicue, the Mexica, or Aztec, mother goddess, are inverted to reveal their concave sides and reassembled to create a hollow figure. Do ut des (2014–19), Castillo Deball’s series of perforated books, borrows its title from a Latin phrase meaning “I give so that you will give,” and her Mathematical Distortions (2012) refers to the shifts in knowledge that occur with shifts in position. Together, the works in the exhibition speak to the place of the viewer, the permeability of surfaces, and ideas of reciprocity and exchange.

Curated by Natalie Bell