The Road to Aztlan: Art from a Mythic Homeland
The mythic Aztec homeland of Aztlan an area that covered what is  now the American Southwest and some portions of  Mexico reverberates throughout the later history of  pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and into the Chicano present. This  volume functions as an accompanying text for a Los Angeles  County Museum of Art exhibition in which virtually all aspects  of the artistic traditions associated with this vast region have  been assembled resulting in a sprawling, fascinating, and at  times inchoate show. Addressing this extraordinary array of  objects are 19 essays by scholars and artists who focus on what  is now a binational realm and the complex give-and-take of  ideas, culture, and material artifacts that have derived from  it. Glaringly absent, however, is an adequate discussion of  colonial art and the region's half-millennium of Catholicism.  Further, the barely adequate checklist will disappoint readers  looking for a more focused perspective on the show's exquisite  objects. While this is not a completely satisfying effort,  collections concerned with the art and peoples of the immense,  multifaceted, multicultural arena will require this  volume. Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New YorkCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.