"Inventing Race -- Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico" enters its final two weeks at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The international exhibition features 100 works of casta painting - pieces which portray the complex process of mestizaje or race mixing among the three major groups that inhabited Mexico during the colonial period: Indian, Spanish, and African.

The casta genre gave form to European preoccupation with race and racial geneology, said Ilona Katzew, curator, during a public lecture.

The images frequently portray family portraits with family members of different races and an inscription of the racial mix being depicted. The works also include samplings of local objects, food products, and flora, thereby detailing information about daily life in 18th century Mexico. The exhibit runs through Aug. 8.