The Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico, the first large-scale exploration of the ancient kingdoms of southern Mexico and their patron deity, Quetzalcoatl, the human incarnation of the Plumed Serpent. On view from April 1 through July 1, 2012.
Architectural Ornament in the Form of a Cut Shell, Mexico, Tenochtitlan, 1400–1521, Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City, photo © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (CONACULTA-INAH-MEX).
This groundbreaking exhibition features more than two hundred objects—including painted codices, turquoise mosaics, gold, and textiles— from Mexico, Europe, and the United States. These rare artworks trace the development of an extensive trade network that resulted in a period of cultural innovation that spread across ancient Mexico, the American Southwest, and Central America during the Postclassic (AD 900-1521) and early colonial periods.
“This exhibition foregrounds an era of cultural innovation in Mesoamerica when trade networks, closely linked to the deity Quetzalcoatl, facilitated the exchange of both goods and ideas across vast distances,” said Victoria Lyall, LACMA associate curator of Latin American art, “Southern Mexican kingdoms recognized Quetzalcoatl as their founder and patron, and these communities became, and continue to be, the Children of the Plumed Serpent.”
The exhibition is co-curated by LACMA curators the late Dr. Virginia Fields and Dr. Victoria Lyall, and consulting curator Dr. John Pohl, an independent curator and scholar. After its staging in Los Angeles, the exhibition will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art where it will be on view from July 29 through November 25, 2012.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard (at Fairfax Avenue), Los Angeles, CA, 90036
23 857-6000
lacma.org
