The Road to Aztlan: Art from a Mythic Homeland

The Road to Aztlan: Art from a Mythic Homeland explores the art derived from and created about the legendary area that encompasses the American Southwest and portions of Mexico, from long before they were separated by an international border to the present day. Produced to accompany a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Road to Aztlan contains nineteen essays by an international team of scholars and artists who investigate the concept of Aztlan as a metaphoric center and allegorical place of origin for the various peoples of the Southwest and Mexico. Cultural interactions between the two areas span three millennia, beginning with the knowledge of maize agriculture, which spread north from Mexico around 1200 B.C. The contributors to this volume explore the relationship between myth and history as expressed in the region's art and material culture, as well as the evolution and persistence of cultural practices over the course of the pre-Columbian, colonial, and contemporary eras.