A pocket-sized exhibition of eleven large and twenty-eight small examples of Pre-Columbian sculpture of Mexico. The clay and stone sculpture has been borrowed from several southern California collections, those of Robert Rowan, E. Primus, Dalton Trumbo and the Stendahl Gallery. One is a little at a loss to fully understand the nature of the display: it does not attempt, even on a small scale, to render a meaningful picture of the PreColumbian sculpture of this region, nor, with the exception of two specific pieces, could one honestly say that the individual examples are in themselves outstanding. If the whole exhibition could have been composed of such powerful visual statements as that depicting Xipe, the Toltec Flayed God or the small Mayan seated figure from the Island of Jaina (both from the Rowan Collection) its limited scope would have been understandable. For then its sole reason for being would be that of displaying a few magnificent high points of Pre-Columbian art. But such is not the dominant theme, for the run of the pieces is average and in some cases not even this.
One suspects that the apparent lack of direction in this exhibition may be due to the confusion (intellectual, emotional and visual), which still surrounds the field of primitive art. If it is to be treated as art, then the question of quality must be the dominant basis for selection and emphasis. If its significance is ethnological or archaeological, then the average will probably occupy the center of the stage. Quite obviously a piece of primitive sculpture may well serve both purposes, for the juice we may squeeze from it is highly varied. But in the matter of an exhibition, some decision must be made, in one direction or another.
—David Gebhard
