Reveling in UT's own Olmec head

It has been giving me a sheer delight that I find it hard to explain and verbalize that the University of Texas and more particularly the Institute of Latin American Studies has its own handmade reproduction of a Mesoamerican Olmec head from Mexico, made by an artist in Veracruz and donated to us by the government of that state.

Many find the head a bit weird. It is certainly not modern or much in sync with our usual supposedly tasteful European-descended public art. Even Sandy whose artistic tastes are bit more esoteric even than mine finds this irrational exuberance of mine about the head a bit odd. But it just makes break out in a truly irrational large grin every time I see it.

Part of what delights me so much is that this sits in front of the Latin American Studies building so that you walk by it every time you enter. I go there a lot to go to meetings and to use the library so my daily environment has just been brightened and a wonderful bit of what I like about Mexico planted right on my path. Sometimes even large institutions really get it right.

About the art, the official announcement says, "In contrast to a public image that identifies the Olmec (1500–400 BCE) as merely an enigmatic people who sculpted colossal stone heads of unknown gods and carved exquisite jade figurines, current scholarship recognizes Olmec culture as the foundation of civilization in Mesoamerica. Unquestionably, the Olmec not only carved magnificent monolithic public monuments, but they also originated the first inter-Mesoamerican art style. Recent discoveries in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, strongly suggest that the Olmec even may have independently invented a system of hieroglyphic writing around 1000 BCE." Read more at
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/llilas/conferences/olmec/index/