Existing comment:
Luis C. González
born Mexico City, Mexico 1953
Fiesta del Maiz
1979
screenprint on paper
In the 1970s the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF) art collective staged elaborate events in Sacramento that initiated new community traditions born out of Mexican and indigenous culture and history. Their Fiesta del Maiz (Corn Festival) events adapted pre-Columbian harvest rituals to an urban context. These events at once affirmed Chicanos' indigenous roots and claimed public space in the city during periods of gentrification. To promote a 1979 corn festival celebration, González modified a version of Xilonen, the Aztec green maize ear goddess. The original image is from the Codex Magliabechiano, a sixteenth-century Spanish colonial document that describes Aztec customs and rituals.
Museum purchase through the Patricia Tobacco Forrester Endowment, 2020.47.2 |