There's been a welcome re-shuffling of the permanent collection at the MUNAL, a grand museum that like many in Mexico City has a breathtaking permanent collection but suffers from terrible museumography. The main temporary show right now is built on the weak premise of somehow filtering MUNAL's collection through the "lens" of Octavio Paz. This basically means moving around the artworks and stringing them together with strange and confusing quotations from Paz's writings.
The upside, room for fresh works!
The MUNAL is finally acknowledging thousands of years of Mexican history that preceded the collision with the Spanish by bringing in pre-Columbian artifacts to the spaces. One of these, seen above, stopped me in my tracks. It's a late Classic Tlaloc (for whom I've always had a soft spot) from the Veracruz region.
The Tlaloc is in remarkable condition. But take a close look. With his skinny frame, hunched and pensive pose, oversized eyewear, uh, uncommon fashion sense, and petulant demeanor, I couldn't help asking ...
Is this the most hipster-ish deity figure that Mesoamerica ever produced?