Powerpoint Presentation
CORE
Lecture Outline
Invisible Apparitions:
Mexico 1950-90
Bruce-Novoa
Reading: Roger Bartra
June 1-2
1. A new generation of artist, well schooled in Octavio Paz's concepts, revolutionized the Mexican scene: known as La Ruptura (Rupture).
2. By 1968 they will have assumed a leadership role on the national stage.
3. Juan García Ponce was their major theorist.
4. The writers associated with these artists came to control all the major literary journals in the Mexico City.
II. The Aesthetic change can be traced to Paz and Rufino Tamayo.
1. Can be seen as rejecting the "Local" Mexican School of Art in favor of an "International" aesthetic.
a. Archetype vs. the particular
b. Poetic vs. prosaic
c. Evocation vs. reference
III. Different aesthetic attitudes establish differences within key areas
1. Murals becomes abstracted
2.
Mexicanness gives way to international universals.
3.
Figurative emphasis gives way to free-form and
geometric abstraction.
4.
José Luis
Cuevas attacks the Mexican School in "The Cactus Curtain"
IV. 1965
Scandal: National Award for Art shared
by two abstract Painters.
1.
Followers of
Mexican School of Art protest against the art as un-Mexican.
2.
New Generation
defends itself.
3.
New Generation
assumes hegemony over Mexican Arts.
4.
Marks vs.
Signs: Intuiting Postmodernity.
5.
Threatening the
Establishment.
V. Vicente Rojo's
works as case study
1.
Geometric form.
2.
Layered,
textured surface.
3.
Signs set afloat: multiple signifieds.
4.
Parodic play
with established cultural signifiers
VI. Arnaldo Coen's
work as case study
"Mutations": Abstraction of the I Ching
2.
Collaboration
with Mario Laviste, Mexico's leading avant-garde composer.
3.
Dialogue with
John Cage
VII. Juan García
Ponce on The Tradition of Rupture
1.
Neither culture
nor tradition can offer the contemporary artist a foundation for work.
2.
True artists
can only break with tradition, thus finding a tradition of breaks to renew art.
3.
These artists
do not insist on their way or on any set program.
4.
Their work is
open to the world, not limited to national programs.
5.
While
nationality is an accident, artistic expression is a choice.
VIII. Matias Goeritz´ Eco can be seen as source of
change.
1.
The geometrics
of freedom
2.
Restructuring
the cityscape around monumental abstract landmarks.
IX. The Road to the 1968 Olympics: Mexico´s Local/Global performance of
Modernity.
1.
Cultural
Olympics: Goeritz' "Route of
Friendship"
a.
Abstract
b.
Monumental—to
be seen from passing cars
c.
Made of
concrete
d.
Integration of
mural projects into modernist buildings
2.
New
Housing: Nonoalco-Tlatelolco as
National Allegory
a.
Building named
after states and key historical dates.
b.
The new Foreign
Relations building.
c.
The Plaza of
Three Cultures at its center.
3.
Modernizing
Chapultepec Park: the park as
Local/Global dialogue.
a.
New Museum of
Modern Art
b.
New Museum of
Anthropology
c.
New Hotel
Camino Real—fusion of art and geometry
X. Olympic
Surprise: Student Movement and
Performing Global Modernity
1. Affinities with
Ruptura art
2. Affinities with international movements
3. Government response:
repression and massacre
4. Tlatelolco as National Allegory
XI. 1970s:
Attempts to Recuperate National Cohesion
1.
Proliferation
of programs
2.
Decentralization
of institutions
3.
Expansion of
National University
XII. Espacio Escultórico (Sculptural Space)
1978-80
1.
Dialogue with original University buildings
2.
Difference in achieving goal of communion
with origins
XIII. 1990:
Creating Nation through Museum Culture
1. Splendors of 30 Centuries vs. 20 Centuries of Mexican Art
2. Bartra's Critique
a. Official Culture: The politics of art in Mexico.
b. National Identity
c. The artist's dilemma: Nationalism or Freedom of expression.
3. Museum Culture as new international stage for performing nationalism.
XIV. The "tradition" of La Ruptura in postmodern Mexico?
XV. The Cityscape as the stage of Modernity.
XVI. 1994 SURPISE: The Voice of the Voiceless/ Apparitions of the Invisible Nation