The Aztecs at the Guggenheim.

November 6, 2004 4:48 PM

Memento Mori. The Aztecs made war almost tenderly, wielding wooden swords that were edged with bits of obsidian or flint and, in face-to-face combat, endeavoring not to kill their enemies but, commonly by striking at their legs, to disable and capture them. Later, the captives—thousands of them for a rededication of the Great Temple at Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City) in 1478—were led to high platforms, where priests tore out and displayed their still-beating hearts. An especially respected prisoner might be allowed to fight for his life against Aztec warriors, at the last, with clubs and a sword, but his sword was edged with feathers.
“The Aztec Empire,” at the Guggenheim in New York, is advertised as the most comprehensive exhibition of Aztec art ever mounted outside Mexico. More inside.
posted by matteo (16 comments total)

writes Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker (main link):


The empire proved a pushover for Cortés, for several reasons. One is that the Aztecs had violated the show-business adage about being careful how you treat people on your way up. Embittered neighbors enthusiastically joined the Spaniards—at whose hands they would suffer, in their turn—to demolish Tenochtitlán, in 1521. The Aztecs, with their ceremonial and sporting approach to warfare, were unequal not just to steel and gunpowder but to soldiers (rather than warriors), who killed pragmatically and rarely bothered to take prisoners. Smallpox completed the devastation. The story that Montezuma II was unnerved by a suspicion that Cortés, in his armor, was the plumed serpent-god Quetzalcoatl—he tried to buy off the conqueror, as one would the gods, with lavish offerings—is disputed by scholars. But it seems clear that the emperor could not think outside the terms of a faith that had appeared to account for all eventualities. To enter the force field of the Aztecs’ collective dream, at the Guggenheim, is to reset the defaults of your imagination.

posted by matteo at 4:50 PM on November 6, 2004

on this topic, I have recently read Coe & Koontz's book: very informative
posted by matteo at 4:53 PM on November 6, 2004

I'm so there. Thanks for reminding me of this.
posted by Busithoth at 5:11 PM on November 6, 2004

Schjeldahl's review is fantastic in its' own right, by the way. New Yorkers, please go! I would, in one of your minutes, if I lived over there!
posted by mwhybark at 5:17 PM on November 6, 2004

Saw this article in the New Yorker this week-- fascinating, and I think Schjeldahl is absolutely right when he says that the drama of the culture-- it's violence-- makes it accessible in a way that other ancient cultures may not be-- that with the Aztecs, we know where we stand: aghast.

Fascinating link, thank you.
posted by jokeefe at 5:35 PM on November 6, 2004

Oddly, there is a nice bit about this in the Mexico City chapter of Kunstler's The City in Mind. Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the book rec, matteo.
posted by shoepal at 6:04 PM on November 6, 2004

On a side note: Ancient ruins new neighbor: Wal-Mart
posted by AstroGuy at 6:16 PM on November 6, 2004

When it came to sports, the Aztecs didn't mess around:

The game between competing teams of players could symbolize the battles between the gods in the sky and the lords of the underworld. The ball could symbolize the sun. In some of these ritual games, the leader of the losing team would be decapitated as a human sacrifice. His skull would then be used as the core around which a new rubber ball would be made.
posted by euphorb at 7:00 PM on November 6, 2004

I highly recommend some of the first-person accounts from this era. In particular, Diaz del Castillo's Conquest of New Spain was written by one of Cortes' soldiers. It is really vivid and it is difficult to believe this is not just some Indiana Jones tale - the times they barely survived, the strange small tribes they ran into on the way, the back-and-forth messages (via runners) with Montezuma, their entrance into the grand city of Tenochtitlan, the moody Aztec king, the tales of gold and details like the strange animals in Montezuma's Zoo.
posted by vacapinta at 7:33 PM on November 6, 2004

I second vacapinta. Tenochtitlan was far larger and better maintained, from an urban cleanliness standpoint, than any city any of the conquistadores had ever been in. My late night brain fails the references, I think, but Fr. Sahagun's writings are also remarkable things.

There's a great English history, too. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico (1843?), was the first scholastic recounting of these events in English, possibly the first one period. It's amazingly accessible to a contemporary reader. It's inaccurate in places and wholly ignorant about many aspects of Native American culture, but he does great job digging through the colonial records to tell the story, which is really quite incredible. 500 scruffy semi-criminal adventurers, on the lam, took down an empire renowned for its' military skill and familiarity with death; it's simply astonishing.
posted by mwhybark at 1:32 AM on November 7, 2004

the exhibition at the guggenheim is superb yet somewhat inaccessible -- the object labels are laconic, to say the least. to actually understand this show, you have to be some sort of aaoa scholar.

whenever the guggenheim has a non-modern-art show (i.e. every 2-3 years) be certain that the purpose is mainly to make money. naturally the show itself will be amazing, but I'm just sayin'.
posted by dorian at 2:03 AM on November 7, 2004

I was lucky enough to see the Aztecs exhibition at the Royal Academy in London a couple of years ago. A spellbinding experience, though you had to be prepared for the occasional shock. Look at that beautiful stone jar .. so intricately carved .. I wonder what it was used for .. *bends down to read caption* Oh. Oh. *recoils*

The New Yorker article, though perceptive in some ways, doesn't entirely avoid the usual cliches about 'a civilisation based on slaughter'. I remember the same cliches in the reviews of the Royal Academy exhibition. As one critic wrote, "what this exhibition shows beyond doubt is that human sacrifice really was at the heart of their civilisation" (which, ironically, was exactly what the Aztecs said about Christianity). The best book I have read about the Aztecs is Inga Clendinnen's Aztecs: An Interpretation which, like Hemingway on the bullfight, understands that the rituals of violence were not merely an expression of sadistic cruelty.
posted by verstegan at 2:30 AM on November 7, 2004

Xipe Totec is gonna get you!

(Damnit, I thought going to the Royal Academy one would give me the most Aztec for my pound. Now the Guggenheim has to beat 'em!)
posted by Katemonkey at 3:35 AM on November 7, 2004

thanks for the book suggestions everybody
posted by matteo at 4:48 AM on November 7, 2004

An interesting aside is from the Conquistadores' point of view. Here were men who had fought in brutal wars in Europe, seen all sorts of horrific acts, and yet, on seeing the practices of the Aztecs were convinced that "this must be destroyed."

Dispelling this "spur-of-the-moment" inclination, a Priest among the first Conquistadores insisted on the preservation of Aztec writings, codexes, which he studied for some four years before ordering their destruction as the epitome of evil. In itself, this was extraordinary, because the Spanish were known for their record keeping, much of which survives to this day.
posted by kablam at 8:42 AM on November 7, 2004

Just in case, a permalink to the New Yorker article linked above.
posted by Vidiot at 4:40 PM on November 7, 2004