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Folk Culture
Posted by: Brian | March 1, 2009 | Comments Off on Folk Culture
Folk Culture and Modernity
In the first reading the author discusses the “evolution” of the different processes that the murals went thru in Mexico. I think that the author uses the concept of the “public sphere” to show how depending on the governments interests the artists painted their murals. In the 1920´s there was a revolutionary sprit so the murals had revolutionary ideas. I thought it was really interesting to see how the government exerts hegemony in this case thru art, as in the case of Diego Rivera that had to change his painting because it could offend Catholics. Then, I think that the author also suggests that nowadays mural representation is still present, but now in the form of graffiti. When reading that article I thought of the EZLN´s murals in Chiapas and how they also use their paintings to represent their fight and resistance to challenges that globalization creates. I thought this article was interesting and I liked that I already had some background from the “cosmic race” article of Vasconcelos so that when I read the part in this article I already knew where he was coming from.
For the second article I think the article writes about the spirit possession and the formation of the “nation-state”. In my opinion it was difficult to follow this reading, but at like the part at the beginning where it says that we have places soulstuff to the state. I think that is a very simple sentence but powerful at the same time because it is true we attribute human characteristics to the imaginary concept of “nations”. I also liked the map on page 8 where there is the representation of European control (colonialism) where oil is taken out of the country and videos and cars are imported. It is a very simple map that has also a powerful message.
