Monthly Archives: February 2017

Ideas concerning Campbell piece on Mexican Murals

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Firstly, there was a lot of material covered in this article, and I did not manage to analyse it all; however, the material surrounding this article, and also the background research I did made it significantly more interesting and also made it more understandable, as I could relate it to a political and historical context of the main people in this discourse.

The article written by Campbell discusses the problems, and decline of Mexican muralism, and the culture surrounding it. It seems to focus on a few names, but one most important name, that of Siqueiros. His full name was David Alfaro Siqueiros . With the help of Rivera and Orozco, he is thought to have been one of the three founders of Mexican muralism. Being a Marxist, he often encountered struggles with the law, as the USA sought to stifle any traits of Communism during WWII/Cold War afterwards, during the time of when he was painting.

What interested me most about this, was how much of an issue politics could be in the production of art, and how political discourse, in the case of Mexican muralism, has dominated it for the last half-century or thereabouts. One of the things which interested me greatly was how many of the original Mexican murals were, albeit not strictly, constructed in the vision of Jose Vasconcelos, who was the Minister of Education in Mexico during the years 1921-21, President Alvaro Obregon. He was a revolutionary minister who initiated massive educational reforms in both school and university contexts. Equally importantly, he helped Mexican muralism to flourish for the next 5 decades.

The political significance of muralism is referenced multiple times during this article, for example on p31, where Octavio Paz noted that by the late 1970s Mexican mural painting belonged to what might be called the the wax museum of Mexican nationalism. Furthermore, on p39, the political significance of the mural is then re-emphasised, as the act of signing one specific mural causes outrage within the artistic community, and overall popular community. Also on p29, with the destruction of Mexican muralism; one feels like it is the centre point of urban Mexican culture and it’s almost like people aren’t even interested that it’s disappearing/lack of care for it?

I would argue that the paradox here is that muralism needed Mexican nationalism in order to dominate Mexican art culture, but simultaneously many people felt that this nationalism undermined and even restricted any possible counter-culture within the art form.

The decline of the ‘Mexican school’ after Siqueiros shows how important he was in Mexican muralism, but also perhaps how much of the culture revolved around him, and really relied on him – without Siqueiros, we might not be studying about muralism today!

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on the Peter Wade article conerning ‘mestizaje’

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Another week, another load of work, unfortunately only got to read the mestizaje article by Peter Wade which was very interesting. Firstly, what took my interest was by how malleable the term ‘mestizaje’ is; on p240 he tells us how scholars acknowledge that ‘mestizaje’ does not have a single meaning within the Latin American context, and can have meanings of sameness and difference. This strikes me, as it appears that this is one of many terms which are extremely malleable and open to interpretation in this course. Naturally this creates a great amount of discussion surrounding the term – which makes up a significant part of this piece.

Due to the all inclusiveness of the term, the mestizo is seen to be someone who can incorporate or even inherit elements of other cultures alien to their cultural origins (discussed on p249). However, Wade is quick to point out that elements of original race aren’t disbanded in mestizoness – they are meant to be represented in the fusion of the mestizo (p245).

It was interesting to notice that more specifically in Columbia, the idea that the body is shaped by biological and cultural process is related to origins with racial associations …the example of Penaloza (composer) who witnessed an argument between band director/player – essentially said that to play the style of the region you had to consume the food of the region and be part of it as a whole. A further example of this is on p248 – where sambrosa/sexual fission is associated with blackness in dancing. This slightly ties in to what he is saying on p243 – where he argues that the idea of ‘mestizoness’ needs black people (often referred to as ‘los negros’) in order to exist – is this similar to how Peronism paradoxically needed the wealthy elite to exist?

Conversely, Stutzman ‘famously defined mestizaje as an ‘ all-inclusive ideology of exclusion’, a system of ideas that appeared to include everyone as a potential mestizo, but actually excluded black and indigenous people’ (p241). Quite different to what follows on p243: ‘the very idea of mixture depends fundamentally on the idea not only of whiteness, but also of blackness and indigenousness.’

What interested me most was the notion of how mestizaje can be enhanced through popular music which can simultaneously encourage diversity. This fundamentally shows how powerful music is (which becomes increasingly apparent through discussion later into the article), and how much of a cornerstone music continues to be for ‘mestizaje’ – music is very fluid, as it is often considered a language without words which everyone can understand.