Sculpture and Cosmology
in Ancient Guerrero
MAY 15th – JULY 3rd, 2008
Monday –Saturday 11am-5pm
The famed British sculptor, Henry Moore, collected little-known stone figures from pre-Columbian Mexico, placing them on his tables and windowsills. He said, in fact, that these figures had a significant influence on his own work. The figures are from a provincial culture called Mezcala. Their highly-stylized form has led them to be compared to Cycladic figures. Moore was not alone in collecting Mezcala—here in New York the enigmatic figures were paired with abstract-expressionist paintings in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. It was an era when aesthetic tastes were expansive.
Throckmorton Fine Art presents a large assemblage of Mezcala figures, temples, and masks, all laboriously carved in hard stone. These works of ancient art are not only the legacy of an over-looked, pre-Columbian culture, but also of an earlier generation of art patrons and collectors, whose broad-minded tastes also bequeathed us Mark Rothko and Franz Kline.
Mezcala stone sculpture has an enduring appeal. The abstraction of the human figure, the human face, and the human dwelling is universal, cutting across civilizations and epochs. The sculpture invites contemplation: although the stone is cold and hard, it suggests community and the continuity of life. An extensively illustrated hardcover catalog ($85.00) compliments the exhibition; two noted scholars, Peter T. Furst and Gillett G. Griffin, situate Mezcala within an aesthetic context and explore the cosmology of those who carved, chiseled, sawed, drilled, and polished these stones with only the most rudimentary of tools. Mezcala stone sculpture was invested with meaning, and it continues to have a significant—if different—import.