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FIG. 12 (above): Bowl with
abstraction of an exploded
datura seedpod.
Mimbres, New Mexico.
AD 850–1150.
Ceramic. D: 21 cm.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
gift of Ann Ziff, inv. 2017.43.8.
Photo © 2018 Museum Associates/
LACMA.
90
FIG. 14 (bottom):
The fi ve-spotted
hawkmoth (Manduca
quinquemaculata) is the
most common species of
hawkmoth found in what
is now southwestern New
Mexico.
Photo: Judd Patterson.
ART ON VIEW
ra plant. This involved capturing footage of the
growth cycle and morphing of the datura, initially
photographed by colleague Siegfried N. Lodwig
and later, more extensively, by photographer
Richard Ehrlich, who captured datura footage
during the cultivation of plants and contributed
his dramatic images to the exhibition (fi gs. 1, 10,
13, and 17). LACMA videographer Agnes Stauber
created a six-panel video work that further
supports the curators’ emphasis on the strong visual
aspects of Mimbres designs.
Through their analysis, Berlant and Maurer
have brought a startling new dimension to the
corpus of Mimbres painting. Implicit in their interpretation
is that all painted Mimbres bowls
refer to or represent vision journeys brought
about through psychoactive means. The frequent
FIG. 13 (right):
As the fruit of the datura
plant ripens, its seeds
are released. This datura
seedpod has opened up
completely.
Photo: Richard Ehrlich.
FIG. 15 (below):
Bowl with fl ying hawkmoth,
attributed to the Hawkmoth
Transformation Artist.
Mimbres, New Mexico.
AD 850–1150.
Ceramic. D: 25.4 cm.
The Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco, gift of the Thomas W. Weisel
Family to the Fine Arts Museums of
San Francisco, inv. 2013.76.88.
Photo © 2018 The Fine Arts Museums
ra pollinator depicted in Mimbres art is the bat, of San Francisco.
which drinks the nectar of the blossom (fi gs. 4
and 6).
While much of the installation is concerned
with bowls with various depictions of datura,
its pollinators, and other medicinal fl ora, it
also presents a sequence of bowls that may be
attributed to the hands of individual artists (fi g.
15), as well as bowls with intriguing human/animal
transformation scenes (fi g. 16). Five examples
of painted bowls perhaps reproduce the types
of entoptic visions produced by hallucinationinducing
plants, underlining the centrality of the
trance state to Mimbres painted designs (fi gs.
18 and 22). These can include the narrowing
of the vision to a white tunnel punctuated by
radiating zigzags, triangles, and nested squares,
all elements that appear with great consistency in
Mimbres ceramics, both fi gurative and geometric.
A continuous spiral painted at the bottom of a
bowl or bold concentric circles may also represent
common entoptic forms seen in trance states.
Berlant and Maurer’s research included direct
observation of the various phases of the datu-