Resurrecting the gore and glory of the Aztecs

NEW YORK — A 5-foot tall clay figure of Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of the underworld, stands in a darkened corridor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, flaunting the form of a disintegrating corpse.

The fearsome sculpture is one of more than 400 objects, some recently excavated, in "The Aztec Empire," a wide-ranging exhibition that looks at the life and religious practices of the Aztecs, who reached the height of their power in central Mexico from the 13th-16th centuries.

Even though the opening of the new Museum of Modern Art made the biggest splash in the New York art scene this fall, the show that's got people talking — and sprouting goose bumps — is "The Aztec Empire."

The cultural artifacts and works of art are as exotic as any I have seen. The Aztecs were as fascinating and unfathomable as the early Egyptians, with a distinctive religious fixation on death and transformation. The exhibit shows how the civilization developed, with some objects dating back to the early centuries of the Christian era that represent ancestral cultures and those of nearby peoples, enemies or subjects of the dominant Aztecs. The Aztec empire crumbled with the Spanish invasion, which began in 1519 with the arrival of Hernan Cortez and basically wiped out the culture. Under the banner of religious conversion, the Spanish destroyed great cities and melted down gold objects as plunder. The exhibit includes a few stunning pieces of jewelry that survived as well as some Spanish coins, made from the pillaged gold.

Xipe Totec, "Our Flayed Lord," celebrated in an important Aztec ceremony

"The Aztec Empire" presents an in-depth look at a culture we know too little about. I especially liked it as a counterpart to Seattle Art Museum's "Spain in the Age of Exploration," which presents the Spanish perspective on empire building and Catholic conversion. Today is the last day for "Spain," which will move on to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla. It's a good thing, if rather ironic, that when "The Aztec Empire" ends its run in New York in February, the show will travel to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and remain on view from March 21 to Sept. 4, 2005.

To the Aztecs, gold and silver were the sacred essence of the sun and moon, and they used the precious metals to fashion extraordinary icons and adornments. But the Aztecs were equally adept at sculpting in clay and stone and wood.

The exhibit includes some of the most eloquent ceramic vessels and sculptures I have ever seen — delicately crafted vessels, stamped with intricate designs and tinted with blood-red pigment, as well as sophisticated large clay sculptures (like the one of Mictlantecuhtli), built and fired in sections.

Now showing "The Aztec Empire" The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, through Feb. 13. (212-423-3500 or www.guggenheim.org).

Snakes dominated the animal symbolism in Aztec mythology, and a number of graceful stone sculptures of coiled serpents remain as ominous symbols that inspired a strange ritual in Aztec religious practice. One of the most arresting pieces in "The Aztec Empire" is a large ceramic bowl with an extraordinary blistered-looking surface texture. The bowl, it turns out, was used to hold the skin of a flayed person. A number of clay and stone sculptures demonstrated what the skin was used for — one of the most important ceremonies of the Aztec year, dedicated to the god Xipe Totec, "Our Flayed Lord."

Clay vessel in the shape of a rabbit

During the second month, priests wore the skin of sacrificed victims during the end-of-winter festival. They lived in the fetid skin, tied or stitched at the back, until it decayed and fell away, snake-like, heralding the spring and the rebirth of the planting season — life out of death. Xipe Totec was also the god associated with goldsmiths, who would fashion precious-metal images in clay molds, then break them apart to reveal the dazzling object within.

Those precious gold objects, revered by the Aztecs, became their undoing. "The Aztec Empire" ends with objects from the Spanish colonial period, with Christian symbols superimposed over the earlier artworks. A dark stone serpent basin was adapted as a baptismal font. A portable altar of black obsidian mimicked the powerful Smoking Mirror image used in an Aztec ritual. Missionaries employed the Aztec's belief in sacrifice and rebirth to draw them into the story of Christ's crucifixion.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com