The details of Orozco's politics in this section come from Alejandro Anreus, “Los Tres Grandes: Ideologies and Styles,” in Anreus et al. (2012), pp. 40, 43.
4 4 El Machete No. 7 (June 1924), Mexico City. I here use the translation and edited version by Alejandro Anreus in Anreus et al. (2012), pp. 319–321.
5 5 See Coffey (2007) for a deep consideration of this topic. This publication is a much‐needed updating of the scholarship on Tamayo and features essays by such luminary scholars as Coffey, Olivier Debroise (to whose memory I dedicate this essay), Du Pont, Anna Indych‐López, James Oles, Karen Cordero Reiman, and Adriana Zavala. The chronology and the bibliography are comprehensive.
6 6 See Campbell (2003) for a comprehensive treatment of these many examples of “unauthorized” muralism.
7 7 Illustrated in Resisting the Present: Mexico, 2002/2012 (2011, pp. 38–39), a fantastically interesting catalog for the exhibition of the same name.
8 8 See also James M. Wechsler, “Propaganda Gráfica: Printmaking and the Radical Left in Mexico, 1920–1950” and “Taller de Gráfica Popular: the Life and Drama of Mexico,” in Ittmann (2006), pp. 55–79 and 208–223 respectively.
9 9 See Flores (2013) and “Murales Estridentes: Tensions and Affinities between Estridentismo and Early Muralism,” in Anreus et al. (2012), pp. 108–124.
10 10 Changes in art historical approaches to our topic have been indicated clearly to me, as colleagues have challenged my findings in at least two cases, which I document here, as such incidents mark the progress of the field. Jennifer Jolly respectfully disagrees with me on points of interpretation in her “Two Narratives in Siqueiros' Mural for the Mexican Electricians' Syndicate,” Crónicas: El muralismo, producto de la revolución mexicana, en América (March 2001–February 2002), pp. 99–118, see pp. 105 and 110. Mary Coffey convincingly takes issue with my approach to state patronage and to the formation of viewing subjects in Coffey, M. (2012). How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture: Murals, Museums, and the Mexican State, pp. 15–16. Durham and London: Duke University Press. These references are meant to acknowledge that scholarship in any field is a fluid and dynamic phenomenon, and that scholars need to continue corresponding about methods and findings.
References
1 Anreus, A., Greeley, R.A., and Folgarait, L. (eds.) (2012). Mexican Muralism: A Critical History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
2 Campbell, B. (2003). Mexican Murals in Times of Crisis. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
3 Cardoza y Aragón, L. (1940). La nube y el reloj: Agustín Lazo, Carlos Mérida, Rufino Tamayo, Julio Castellanos, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco. Mexico City: Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma.
4 Coffey, M.K. (2007). “I'm not the fourth great one”: Tamayo and Mexican muralism. In: Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted (ed. D.C. Du Pont), 247–290. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
5 Debroise, O. (2001). Mexican Suite: A History of Photography in Mexico (trans. and rev. in collaboration with the author by Stella de Sá Rego). Austin: University of Texas Press.
6 Enríquez Ureña, P. (1925). La revolución y la cultura en México. Revista de Revistas (15 March).
7 Favela, R. (1984). Diego Rivera: The Cubist Years. Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum.
8 Flores, T. (2013). Mexico's Revolutionary Avant‐Gardes from Estridentismo to ¡30–30! New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
9 Folgarait, L. (1998). Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940: Art of the New Order. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
10 Folgarait, L. (2008). Seeing Mexico Photographed: The Work of Horne, Casasola, Modotti, and Álvarez Bravo. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
11 Gabara, E. (2008). Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press.
12 Ittmann, J. (ed.) (2006). Mexico and Modern Printmaking: A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920 to 1950. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Antonio, TX: McNay Art Museum.
13 Meyer, H. (1949). Introducción. In: El Taller de Gráfica Popular: Doce años de obra artística colectiva (ed. L. Méndez and H. Meyer), 7. Mexico City: La Estampa Mexicana.
14 Mora, C.J. (1989). Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–1988, rev. ed. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
15 Mraz, J. (2012). Photographing the Mexican Revolution: Commitments, Testimonies, Icons. Austin: University of Texas Press.
16 Mraz, J. (2003). Nacho López: Mexican Photographer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
17 Museo Amparo and Musée D'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC. (2011). Resisting the Present: Mexico, 2002/2012 (exh. cat.).
18 Noble, A. (2010). Photography and Memory in Mexico: Icons of Revolution. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
19 Prignitz‐Poda, H. (1992). El Taller de Gráfica Popular, 1937–1977. Mexico City: INBA.
20 Rochfort, D. (1993). The Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros. London: L. King.
21 Rodríguez, A. (1969). A History of Mexican Mural Painting. New York: Putnam.
22 Secretaría de Educación Pública. (1923–1924). Boletín, 2 (5–6).
23 de la Selva, R. (1936a). El arte en México: Valorización del arte de Diego Rivera y del de José Clemente Orozco. El Nacional (9 January).
24 de la Selva, R. (1936b). El arte en México: Valorización del arte de Diego Rivera y del de José Clemente Orozco. El Nacional (25 January).
25 Tejada, R. (2009). National Camera: Photography and Mexico's Image Environment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
26 Vasconcelos, J. (1948). La raza cósmica: misión de la raza iberoamericana; Argentina y Brasil. Buenos Aires: Colección Austral, Espasa‐Calpe.
27 Vasconcelos, J. (1950). Discursos. Mexico City: Compañía Editorial Continental, S.A.
28 Wright‐Rios, E. (1988). Making art and revolution: The prints, politics, and history in Mexico's Taller de Gráfica Popular, 1937–1960. Master’s thesis. Vanderbilt University.
2 The Reinvention of the “Semana de Arte Moderna”
Francisco Alambert
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While the angles of vision shift from one generation to another, the problems to be solved eternally retain the same labels.
– Sérgio Milliet (1981)
2.1 1922
In 1880, just over forty years prior to Brazil's famed 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna (Week of Modern Art, subsequently “Semana”), the central cultural and political questions of Brazilian public debate could be summarized as such: Should the nation abolish slavery or not? How does Brazil become part of the “concert of nations” and adhere to the concept of an industrialized labor force that is modern and free? Are the necessary political structures for a free and modern nation to be found in