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CHICAGO (June 27, 2006) - The Newberry Library, whose collection of Mexican colonial sources is among the top in the U.S., presents The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico, a free exhibition that offers a fresh perspective on the Aztecs in Colonial Mexico and their impact on the heritage and culture of Mexico, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans.
The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico expands traditional conceptions of Aztec civilization and challenges the idea that the Spanish completely destroyed Aztec society and culture. It will instead explore Aztec-Nahua life after Spanish conquest and focus on the dynamic vitality and continuity of indigenous culture in the colonial period.
The exhibit insightfully addresses the 300 years after the conquest that Aztec-Nahua colonial communities, artists, scholars, writers, landowners, and religious leaders worked, litigated, published, wrote, and interacted with Spaniards. The result was a rich cultural exchange of economic, intellectual, and artistic labor that proves indigenous peoples more culturally vibrant than has generally been acknowledged.
"We want this exhibit to vividly reveal the Colonial Aztecs (the Nahua) as people of great intelligence, creativity, and perseverance whose contributions to the making of Colonial Mexico were essential," said Ellen Baird, co-curator and professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "The items in the exhibit make apparent to viewers what words can only suggest: they are learned works and often of great beauty."
Approximately 60 items on display will reveal some of the most spectacular illustrated sources from Colonial Mexico: the first map of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to be printed in Europe; indigenous Aztec-Nahua family wills; maps of land and water rights litigation between indigenous communities and Spanish landowners; books tracing land title ownership to primordial times; marriage, death and taxation. Printed and handwritten books include early Spanish-Nahuatl (the Aztec language) dictionaries, Spanish accounts of the conquest, and ancient Aztec history from the perspective of native historians all from the Newberry Library's Edward E. Ayer Collection of Americana.
Highlights from the exhibit include:
▪ The 1524 Map of Tenochtitlan (from Cortés' letter to the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V, King of Spain)
▪ Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún's religious and historical writings in Spanish, Latin and Nahuatl
▪ A four-generation pictorial genealogy and the pictorial wills of a 16th century indigenous family
▪ The Codex Zempoala, an 18th century pictorial manuscript documenting indigenous village land claims
▪ Early colonial accounts of Mexican history, culture, and language
▪ The screenfold manuscripts of contemporary Mexican-American artist Enrique Chagoya
"One of the exhibit's most ambitious goals is to demonstrate how the persistent vitality and creativity of Aztec culture continues to shape Mexico, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans today," Baird explained. "The exhibition of some key items in the Newberry's Mexicana collections is particularly significant; Chicago's Mexican-American community plays an equally vital, creative, and dynamic role in shaping the culture of our city."
Supporting programs include:
Exhibit Opening Program
Saturday, 30 September, 10 am-Noon
Gallery Walks at Noon, 1 pm (guided tour in Spanish), and 2 pm
Reception, Noon
This program includes an a cappella performance by the Newberry Consort titled: Harmonies of the Hemispheres: Devotions and dreams of Spain and Mexico. The ensemble will present a special vocal performance of music sung Latin, Spanish, and Mixtec in the Library's Ruggles Hall. Immediately following the Saturday morning performance, the exhibition co-curators - Ellen Baird and Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera, both of the University of Illinois at Chicago - will engage in informal conversation on the making of The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico exhibition. Following the curators' discussion, each will offer a guided gallery walk - Roa-de-la-Carrera in Spanish and Baird in English.
"Aztec Moments, Chicano Cosmovision: Imagining a Place for Aztlan"
Saturday, 14 October, 11 am
David Carrasco, a distinguished historian of religion at Harvard University, has published extensively on Aztec ritual, ceremonial centers, and sacred spaces. His talk will compare the Aztecs' imaginative and creative responses to colonization with the ways that Mexican and Mexican-American artists, scholars, and activists have recalled Aztec myths and symbols in constructions of their contemporary identity. Carrasco will meet with high school students for informal discussion before his public talk.
"Mapping the New World for the Spanish Kings"
Thursday, 19 October, 6 pm
Reception, 5:30 pm
Professor Barbara Mundy, Fordham University, will present "Mapping the New World for the Spanish Kings," an illustrated talk on maps of Mexico drawn by indigenous artists. While no dated pre-Columbian maps survive, the vibrant mapmaking tradition of the Aztecs continued and even thrived after the Spanish conquest. Many of these maps contain symbolic references and include detailed administrative maps showing land holdings, canals, and roads. Her lecture will reveal transformations as well as continuities in the subjects and meanings of native maps of Mexico in the early colonial period.
Screening of Atltzatzilistli/Praying for Water
Saturday, 18 November, 11 am
Screenings of "Atltzatzilistli/Praying for Water" (2000), a short video in Nahuatl with English subtitles, will provide audiences at the Newberry and other Chicago sites with opportunities to hear the Aztec language that is currently spoken by more than 1.5 million Mexicans. The producer and director, José Luis Matías Alonso, is a Nahua from Chilapa de Álvarez, State of Guerrero, Mexico. His film shows how indigenous people today are adopting new visual media to tell their stories. Following the screening of "Atltzatzilistli/Praying for Water," Matías Alonso will discuss why indigenous peoples¾accustomed to being filmed by outsiders¾have taken up the camera to record their lives and culture from within their communities.
Monday, November 20, 6 pm, José Luis Matías will present the film at Erie Neighborhood House (La Casa Erie), 1701 West Superior, Chicago. Call (312) 255-3700 or check the Newberry web site, www.newberry.org, for additional locations and dates.
Finding Your Hispanic Roots
Saturday, 16 December, 11 am
George Ryskamp, Brigham Young University, the foremost expert in the United States on southern European family history (especially of Latin America and Spain), will present a public lecture on sources for Mexican and Mexican-American family history in the United States, Mexico, and Spain. Ryskamp is the author of Finding Your Hispanic Roots (1997) and other books and articles on Mexican-American genealogy.
Immediately following Ryskamp's lecture, historian Laura Matthew, Marquette University, will lead a gallery walk of the exhibition focusing on its genealogical materials. In the afternoon, Gabriel Angula will present a free, hands-on workshop on how to research Mexican-American family history at the Newberry Library.
The Invention and Re-invention of Borders
Saturday, 13 January, 11 am
Artist Enrique Chagoya, Stanford University, will close the exhibition with an illustrated talk on his hand-painted and hand-printed books, all based on the pre-Columbian format known as the screen fold. The books are painted on indigenous paper (amatl) and use a mix of cross-cultural collisions and political/religious hybrids. Several of his accordion-fold artist's books will be included in the exhibition. Following his public lecture, Chagoya will meet with high school students to discuss history, art, and national identity.
The public programs series is generously funded by a major grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.
ABOUT THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
The Newberry Library is an independent library open to the public for research and reference in the humanities. One of the largest independent research libraries in the United States, the Newberry holds an extraordinary collection of more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages and 300 thousand historic maps. As one of the world's leading repositories of a broad range of books and manuscripts relating to the civilizations of western Europe and the Americas, the Library's mission is to acquire and preserve research collections of such materials, and to provide for and promote their effective use by a diverse community of users.