Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to the Border Patrol

Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to the Border Patrol by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780872863675.

Inspired by the pre-Hispanic codices that escaped immolation during colonial invasions, this artists book opens out in accordion folds expanding to a length of over 21 feet. Rice has created a series of beautiful and jarring montages in which the mixture of languages, slang, poetry, and prose of Gómez-Peñas performance texts are woven through and around Chagoyas collages filled with pre-Hispanic drawings, colonial-era representations of New World natives, and comic book superheroes. Irreverent to the last, Gómez-Peña and Chagoya employ iconic figures and persistent stereotypes to overturn the fantasies of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and historical amnesia that cloud international relations. Rices masterful typographic compositions orchestrate the texts many voices and views, offering a history of the Americas which must be read forward and backward, in fragments and in recurring episodes―in short, as history itself tends to unfold.