Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to the Border Patrol

In the limited-edition artist book Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to the Border Patrol, Chagoya adopts the format of the codices produced for recordkeeping by pre-Hispanic cultures in Mexico. Like Chagoya’s Codex, these books, read from right to left, were made from accordion-folded amate paper that featured primarily pictorial information. The Spanish burned vast quantities of these codices after the Conquest, erasing much of Aztec and Maya history.

Violence and the rewriting of history are the overarching subjects of the Codex Espangliensis, which interlaces expressive typography, images of famous figures—Che Guevara, Minnie Mouse, George Washington, Aztec deities, Wonder Woman, and Christ, to name a few—and iconic objects like army tanks and bottles of Coca-Cola. The hand-painted illustrations in Codex include scenes of Mexican peasants praying to the American dollar, conquistadors greeted by native peoples, and a display of ritual cannibalism.