Mexican Modernity: The Avant-garde and the Technological RevolutionIn Mexican Modernity, Ruben Gallo tells the story of a second Mexican Revolution, a battle fought on the front of cultural representation. The new revolutionaries were not rebels or outlaws but artists and writers; their weapons were cameras, typewriters, radios, and other technological artifacts, and their goal was not to topple a dictator but to dethrone nineteenth-century aesthetics. Gallo tells the story of this other revolution by focusing on five artifacts that left a deep mark on the literature and the arts of the 1920s and 1930s: the camera and its novel techniques for seeing the modern world; the typewriter and its mechanization of literary aesthetics; radio and poetic experiments with wireless communication; cement architecture and its celebration of functional internationalism; and the stadium and its deployment as a mass medium for political spectacle. Gallo traces the ways artists and writers, armed with these artifacts, revolutionized representation by breaking with the traditional modes of production that had dominated Mexican cultural practices: Tina Modotti rose against the conventions of "artistic" photography by promoting a radically modern photographic aesthetics; typewriting authors rejected the literary precepts of modernismo to celebrate the stridencies of mechanical writing; and young architects abandoned older building materials for the symbolic strength of reinforced concrete. Gallo uncovers a secret history of Mexican modernity that includes a number of fascinating episodes: the pictorialist backlash against Modotti and Edward Weston; the postcolonial Remingtont typewriter; Mexican radio in the North Po the campaign to aestheticize cement through journals and artistic competitions; and the protofascist political spectacles held at Mexico City's National Stadium in the 1920s. |
Contents
MEDIA AND MODERNITY IN MEXICO | 1 |
CAMERAS | 31 |
TYPEWRITERS | 67 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution Ruben Gallo No preview available - 2010 |
Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution Ruben Gallo No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
abajo aesthetics of cement Amundsen Andrade Andrade's Apollinaire architecture artistic avant-garde Azuela broadcast Buen Tono building calligram camera celebrated concrete cult value cultural depiction Detroit Industry Diego Rivera discourse network Edward Weston Estridentistas Excélsior factory Federico Sánchez Fogarty figure futurist Gladkov's Guzmán Ibid inauguration inspired Jalapa Stadium Jara Jara's José Vasconcelos Kittler Kodak Kyn Taniya letters Lettre-Océan literary literature Manuel Álvarez Bravo Maples Arce's Mário de Andrade Martín Luis Guzmán mass ornaments material mechanical mechanogenic medium ment Mexican Revolution Mexico City Modernity in Mexico mural National Stadium novel painting photograph pictorialist poem poet political polvo mágico postrevolutionary Press produced projects Radio Chapter radiogenic Remington representation revolutionary Roald Amundsen Silva SINAFO-Fototeca Nacional symbol tech techniques technological artifacts técnica Tepito texts textual Tina Modotti tion Tolteca Tono's transform typewriter's Underwood Universal Ilustrado utopian Veracruz visual Walter Benjamin wireless workers writing machine wrote York
References to this book
Mexico's Ruins: Juan García Ponce and the Writing of Modernity Raúl Rodríguez-Hernández Limited preview - 2012 |