Description
Book SynopsisPresenting a paradigm-shifting view of early Latin American modernism, this book looks at how a transnational intellectual community of writers and critics forged an anticolonial aesthetic based in abstract artistic forms.
Trade ReviewMontgomery is persuasive in showing the part played by magazines in the circulation of art and criticism in Spanish America. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
While Montgomery treats artists and media that are well known among scholars alongside others that are not, the real contribution of her study lies in how she teases out the discrete ways that the meaning of the same artist's work or a common medium was constituted in different metropolitan contexts, to articulate not a unified regional aesthetic but rather modalities of 'American' art that were articulated to specific national cultures. * Latin American Research Review *
[An] ambitious, far-ranging study…valuable for understanding debates about art and society that continue through post World War II era modernist movements and beyond. * The Americas *
[
The Mobility of Modernism] is a valuable addition to the literature on Latin American modernism, providing a close reading of visual sources and the specificities of the shifting contexts in which they were produced and received…The text is intelligently written, with lucid explanations and insightful conclusions. By expanding the history of modernism to include alternative circuits, contexts, and criteria, Montgomery elucidates a decentralized modernism integrally tied to migrations. * Bulletin of Latin American Research *
[
The Mobility of Modernism] is one of the first scholarly monographs in art history to investigate early Latin American modernism comparatively and historically. Audacious and invaluable, it discards many jaded stereotypes that plague the art of the region, especially the assumption of Eurocentrism...Upending traditional assumptions, Montgomery's study will hopefully signal new directions for art-historical research, determined less by the market-driven canon and more by the careful and unbiased study of primary sources and the acknowledgment of the significance of South-South networks. * Modernism/modernity *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Circulation: Latin American Art in Amauta
- Chapter 2. Relocation: Carlos Mérida Moves to Mexico City
- Chapter 3. Homecoming: Emilio Pettoruti and Xul Solar Return to Buenos Aires
- Chapter 4. Dissemination: Woodcuts Reproduce Artistic Labor
- Chapter 5. Reproduction: Norah Borges Draws Modern Femininity
- Chapter 6. Pedagogy: Mexican Children’s Art Becomes Revolutionary
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
