La Jornada: Exhibition at the Met explores a thousand years of imaginary art in Europe and America

New York. Imaginary creatures created in Europe and Latin America between the years 500 and 1500, such as defiant figures with hands on hips and crocodile heads, ferocious dragons, centaurs, a pre-Hispanic Zapotec figure of Tzinacantecuh-tli, an image of Saint Mark and a unicorn, among others, are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum (Met) as examples of the interaction between myth and reality, expressed in artistic works from peoples throughout the world. over a millennium and before contact between both continents began.

More than 50 sculptures, ceramics, textiles, paintings and metalwork pieces created on both sides of the Atlantic make up the exhibition Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas, which seeks, explains the Met, “to look beyond a story, time or place to explore broader questions about our human essence, who we are and what connects us.” He explains that “hybrid entities could cross the terrestrial and supernatural realms, linking the human and the divine.”

Connection between heaven and earth

“Born from the imagination, hybrid beings constitute a global phenomenon and, in practically all peoples and cultures, they have played a fundamental role in the telling of stories, the formation of identities and the connection between heaven and earth. When they materialize, they have participated in sacred rites, animated daily life and accompanied the dead in their graves,” the curators say.

“Created from elements of nature, hybrid creatures are supernatural and endowed with powers beyond the visible and knowable,” added Laura Filloy Nadal, curator of the Michael Rockefeller wing of the Met, and one of those in charge of this exhibition.

At the same time, these creatures expressed “doctrine, established and reinforced identities, and defined social and cosmological limits.”

He explains that in ancient Mexico, images of large-scale supernatural entities “were distributed across a sacred geography,” marking boundaries, and dominated public spaces and temples, while in Europe hybrid entities in murals and sculptures “played integral roles in the spiritual landscape,” such as in churches, plazas, and religious spaces.

The exhibition includes pieces on loan from the Templo Mayor Museum, in Mexico City.

The exhibition opens on May 18 at The Cloisters, the Met’s satellite headquarters, on the northern tip of Manhattan. It will remain until October 18. More information at: https://www.metmuseum.org/es/exhibitions/creatures-of-myth-and-imagination-europe-and-the-americas.