Session Abstract

Our panel considers post-revolutionary art and culture within and through larger transnational histories/historiographies. The social and political turbulence generated during the Mexican Revolution opened space for dynamic new ideas. The shifting meanings of art and culture figured prominently in the struggle to shape a “true” Mexican post-revolutionary identity well into the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, but the creation of Mexican identity was not the realm of artists alone. Indeed, a closer analysis uncovers the negotiated nature of the relationship between the post-revolutionary state and intellectuals, and the ways in which state officials appropriated artists’ visual images as weapons in the propaganda war and as a system of control in their promotion of patriotic education. Complicating the connections between artists and the post-revolutionary state was an international group of intellectuals who joined local artists to defend, shape, and reinvent the legacy of Mexico’s revolution through their artwork, photographs, and writings.

            Our panel situates the specific political, cultural and economic context of post-revolutionary Mexico within broader intellectual and political frameworks. While emphasizing the connection of Mexico’s artists to transnational organizations or international contexts, our papers also deploy analytical methodologies and theories that derive from outside of Mexico. The study of Mexican artists during this vibrant period ultimately blurs the boundaries between traditional academic disciplines, and as such our panel seeks to explore the connections between history, art and politics. By bringing together cross-disciplinary scholars, this panel will address effectively the AHA’s 2015 theme, “History and the Other Disciplines.” While our papers will focus on Mexico’s art and artists during this era, our panel also is comprised of those who practice history, art history, and sociology to consider the intersections between disciplines. Each of our papers will consider the benefits of bringing approaches and methodologies from history, art history, anthropology, cultural studies, etc. to bear in understanding how visual imagery both shaped and challenged official culture. Included in this panel will be an examination of the connections between the Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco and the anti-historicist philosophy of Walter Benjamin by Mary Coffey; an analysis through art history, anthropology and queer theory of Frida Kahlo’s appropriation of indigenous culture by Adriana Zavala; a study of the ways in which Mexican LGBT artists since the 1970s have engaged the iconography, aesthetics, and discourses of post-revolutionary national identity, culture, and politics in their work by Edward McCaughan; a consideration of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros’ relationship to radical politics within a transnational framework as discussed by Stephanie Smith; and a panel dialog of such relevant issues led by commentator Rick López.

With its inclusion of gender, class, race, and sexuality, recent scholarship has complicated earlier understandings of art and history. Our panel proposes to build on this work by situating these artists at the crossroads of disciplinary inquiry. We also will question language that reifies strict scholarly distinctions. Overall, our panel will appeal to a broad audience of scholars who work on Mexico, on radical politics, the visual arts, cultural studies and gender.