Mexican Modernisms

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course surveys the landscape of Mexican art from the late nineteenth century into the 1940s, exploring the developments, debates, and problems of this particularly rich moment in the history of twentieth-century art. Within the context of post-revolutionary society and politics, we will study the production, circulation, and reception of prints, photographs, easel painting, film, and craft, along with the work of the famed muralists. Issues to be addressed include: the formation of new ideas of nation and citizenship, the relationship of artists to the state, the place of indigenous peoples and their art in a new social order, the influence of foreign artists and trends, the incorporation of both old and new media and technologies, and the intersection of gender, class, and national identities.