Author: postcardsfromsanantonio

UTSA Art Collection gives ‘Voz’ to Latino experience

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Collectively, these artistic works constitute a powerful testimonio of the history, experience and transformations of Latino/a individuals and their place in the communities of these lands.

Out of their vision and craft, these artists have created works that imagine art as a practice of political and spiritual uprising, art as a testament to the abiding power of memory and heritage to help understand ourselves, of the central place of landscape and portraiture in capturing the stories of our legacy, and of the role of mythic imagination as a force that can be refined to re-imagine ourselves into the future.

Amidst all of the differentiation of visions, perhaps there is a deeper narrative visible here, of a people broadening the scope of the ideas and images of themselves as Americans rooted in a still contested landscape, in an increasingly globalized world.

Seen as a whole, the VOZ exhibition can be viewed as a powerful affirmation of the role artists and their work are playing in helping to unfold and reveal the destiny of a people, a story embodied in the three-hundred yearlong history of the city of San Antonio.

John Phillip Santos

More than 200 works drawn from the art collection of the University of Texas San Antonio are included in “VOZ,” on display at Centro de Artes at Market Square as part of San Antonio’s Tricentennial Celebration.

For three hundred years, San Antonio has been a place where different languages, customs and traditions have merged to form a unique cultural history.

Like all stories of a particular place and time, the work on these walls is informed by pride, joy and a tenacity that reverberates in the voices that celebrate the Latino experience.

Arturo Infante Almeida, exhibition curator

Six of the featured artists will join Almeida and Santos for a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Ellen Riojas Clark at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 5.

The not-to-be-missed admission-free exhibition runs through June 10.

Morning walk turns into thematic parade through San Antonio’s heritage

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The sky spat a fine mist on us when we set out for a morning walk. We probably would not have headed out at all were I not obsessed by the prospect of seeing longhorns herded through downtown in the San Antonio Livestock Show & Rodeo’s Western Heritage Parade and Cattle Drive, enlarged this year as part of San Antonio’s celebration of its 300th birthday.

The tricentennial meaning of the “300” on the banner was lost on some of the spectators standing next to us. Child: “Wow. There are going to be 300 cows.” Dad: “No, it means this is the 300th year of the cattle drive.”

While this was not the 300th annual parade of longhorns, cattle have been part of San Antonio’s history since Native Americans tending livestock for San Antonio’s string of missions became America’s first cowboys. Many of the Spanish terms the charros used to describe their work and equipment became embedded in the English language, as in the word “rodeo” itself.

Longhorns are not foreign to downtown, with a strong connection to Alamo Street and its plaza:

In 1876 salesman Pete McManus with his partner John Warne (Bet-a-Million) Gates conducted a famous demonstration on Alamo Plaza in San Antonio in which a fence of Glidden’s “Winner” wire restrained a herd of longhorn cattle. Gates reportedly touted the product as “light as air, stronger than whiskey, and cheap as dirt.” Sales grew quickly thereafter, and barbed wire permanently changed land uses and land values in Texas.

“Barbed Wire,” Texas Handbook Online

Sheep, goats, hogs, cows and horses often clogged the streets as farmers and ranchers brought them in from the countryside to sell to city dwellers. City folks began to tire of the inconvenience of this practice as the 21st century dawned.

Driving wild stock through our streets should be prohibited at once. Yesterday afternoon a drove of about thirty horses went up Houston street, and came near killing a child, while general travel was greatly obstructed.

San Antonio Daily Express, March 12, 1891

parade essentials – pooper scoopers
women attired in the style of San Antonio’s Canary Island settlers
cookies in Camel Corps, a shop in La Villita
new mural on the side of The Maverick – Texas Brasserie, opening soon on South St. Mary’s Street

Hoping this herd of longhorns will not be the last to parade past the Alamo.

Much like barbed wire transformed the days of the open range, a wall some propose to enclose San Antonio’s Alamo Plaza would bring an era to an end. For many San Antonians, the Alamo and its plaza represent more than a battle site frozen and time. Their evolution before and after 1836 is an integral part of our heritage. The plaza historically and currently lies at the heart of many of San Antonio’s annual celebrations.

Texans in other parts of the state often fail to realize how tightly this plaza is woven into our urban fabric. The revised Master Plan for the Alamo now appears to recognize that concern:

An early concept of structural glass walls was shared at a public meeting, however, the final Master Plan includes no walls. The plan does propose archaeology that would reveal the original Alamo wall footings so that visitors may see what remains of the original Alamo walls.

Although this assurance is followed by:

These and other design concepts will be fully explored in future phases of the plan.

Stay vigilant.

This year’s San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo runs February 8 through 25.

Postcard from Mexico City: Long-buried Aztec deities continue to surface downtown

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A life-size figure with skin flayed and liver hanging out sounds alarming, but there is a disarming charm to Mictlantecuhtli. So cute, let’s call him Mickey.

The sculpture represents the Aztec god of death who periodically was bathed in the blood of human sacrifices. But his well manicured hands appear to be politely gesturing “pardon me,” and his smile possesses almost a Mona Lisa-like serenity. And, what a survivor. He was buried in downtown Mexico City for more than 400 years.

Maybe it was the recent exposure to all of the Day of the Dead skulls and skeletons accompanied by traditions designed to encourage the departed to return to earth to their loved ones that made the god of death less terrifying. Plus, I imagine he would be more menacing if I were a perspective blood donor of his bath water.

The destruction of Aztec temples under the order of Hernan Cortes in 1524 was no secret, and, in fact, the reuse of some of their stones for the construction of the Cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was a major public relations maneuver demonstrating the might of the Spanish conquistadors. But for centuries, the remains of the city of Tenochtitlan and its Templo Mayor were kept buried below the development of the cosmopolitan city above. Archaeologists poking about and stumbling across remnants of the Aztec civilization were discouraged from their pursuits.

In 1978, electrical company workers digging a little deeper stumbled upon a circular monolith more than 10 feet across. The intact relief of Coyolxauhqui, the daughter of a maternal earth goddess and Mixcoatl, a god of the hunt, war and the Milky Way. Coyolxauhqui plotted against her mother, so a younger sibling, Huitzilopochtli, chopped off her head and limbs. Her depiction in stone shows her severed limbs all akimbo around her torso.

Her brother’s revenge extended to his brothers, all 400 of them. Eliminating much of the competition, Huitzilopochtli emerged to assume a role as a deity of war and the sun. He was the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan, and appeasing him required frequent refueling from human sacrifices, accounting for many of the human skulls found on site.

The twin sanctuaries of the Templo Mayor were dedicated to his worship and that of Tlaloc, the rain god, “he who makes things sprout.” While rain god sounds peaceful, a provoked Tlaloc could cause drought, floods, hurricanes and illnesses. Although he kindly bestowed life in paradise to those who drown or were struck by lightning, Tlaloc, too, needed sacrifices to encourage him to provide the right amount of rain needed for crops.

eagle warrior
chacmool, the name assigned to reclining figures with heads facing at 90-degree angles and containers on their stomachs for offerings (such as human hearts), found at the Templo Mayor
tzompantli, rows of stone sculptures of skulls
Tlaloc
eagle with a receptacle in its body, possibly for the hearts of sacrificial victims
stone warriers once guarding Templo Mayor now “stand at ease,” leaning against one of its staircases
Tlaltecuhtli, the earth goddess of the Mexicas
Miclantecuhtli, the god of death, who once stood inside the House of the Eagles
8-foot tall spiral roof ornaments representing snails associated with the rain god Tlaloc adorned the roof of calmecac, the school for children of nobility.
Tlaltecuhtli, the earth goddess of the Mexicas
bench decorated with warriors in feathered regalia in the House of the Eagles
Tlaloc
one of several serpents guarding the Templo Mayor
Toltec mask indicating contact with other cultures
Skulls of human sacrifices or entombed nobles were abundant on the site.
eagle warrior on left; Miclantecutli on right
Tlaloc

Back to 1978, weighing in at about eight tons the monolithic Coyolxauhqui proved hard to ignore. Excavation around her revealed a rich minefield of artifacts in amazingly good condition. Numerous buildings near the Cathedral were demolished to provide accessibility, and archaeologists soon discovered the Templo Mayor consisted of pyramids built upon pyramids by successive Aztec rulers over a period of about 150 years.

Designed by architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, the Museum of the Templo Mayor opened adjacent to the site in 1987 to display some of the more than 7,000 objects unearthed during the archaeological explorations.

The main ruins of Tenochtitlan cover close to seven city blocks, much of which has not been excavated. Often emerging from adversity, opportunities for additional digs still arise. In the 1990s, work to halt the sinking of the Cathedral as the city’s water table dropped led to numerous finds beneath its floor. More than 20 years after the deadly 1985 earthquake, a damaged building was demolished to reveal the ruins of the Calmecac, the elite school of the Aztec nobility.

Near the museum foyer lies a 12-ton monolith representing Tlaltecuhtli, the earth goddess. This massive 12 x 13-foot relief was not discovered until 2006 on the grounds of an estate on the corner of Guatemala and Argentina Streets. As with many of the Aztec deities, she possessed a split personality. Her name means “the one who gives and devours life.” She demanded many human hearts and much blood to keep her in a positive life-giving mood.

The excavation of Tenochtitlan and the adjacent museum provide an incredible opportunity to view relics from the Aztec civilization from one site all grouped together. Its location downtown by the Zocalo offers an understanding of the development of Mexico City from the 1300s, to the conquest and the construction of the Cathedral, to the growth of the surrounding aristocratic neighborhood during the Diaz years and finally into a bustling contemporary city, home to more than 20 million inhabitants.

Pardon us, Mickey and crew. Please look kindly upon us mortals pausing to stare. Surely you appreciate your liberation after centuries underground. And the contemporary temple of a museum reverently sheltering you now is quite palatial.