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Dando Gracias [Giving Thanks]
Dando Gracias [Giving Thanks]

Dando Gracias [Giving Thanks]

Primary (East Los Angeles, California, 1952–Los Angeles, California, present)
Date1983
MediumScreenprint
DimensionsSheet: 34 3/16 × 22 3/16 in. (86.8 × 56.4 cm)
Image: 30 9/16 × 18 1/4 in. (77.7 × 46.3 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Gilberto Cárdenas, 2017.443
Collection AreaPrints and Drawings
Object number2017.443
On View
Not on view
Collection Highlight
Label Text
Léo Limon often explores Mesoamerican and Indigenous imagery in his work. In "Dando gracias", he quotes a well-known Maya carved relief from Yaxchilan, in Chiapas, Mexico. In the relief, Lady Xook is in the hallucinatory stage of a bloodletting ritual, in which she conjures a vision serpent that is in turn bringing forth an ancestor. Limon transformed the image by grounding it in the landscape of the Southwest. Lady Xook raises baskets of fruits and a flowery prickly pear or nopal cactus to the moon in a gesture of thanksgiving.
Exhibitions