Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition: Women, Gender, and Representation in Mexican Art

Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition examines the relationships among women, nationalism, racial identity, and modernity before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution. In this innovative study, Adriana Zavala demonstrates that the image of Mexican womanhood, whether stereotyped as Indian, urban, modern, sexually “degenerate,” or otherwise, was symbolically charged in complex ways both before and after the so-called postrevolutionary cultural renaissance, and that crucial aspects of postrevolutionary culture remained rooted in nineteenth-century conceptions of woman as the bearer of cultural and social tradition. Focusing on images of women in a variety of contexts—including works by such artists as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, María Izquierdo, and Frida Kahlo, as well as films, pornographic photos, and beauty pageant advertisements—this book explores the complex and often fraught role played by visual culture in the social and political debates that raged over the concept of womanhood and the transformation of Mexican identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Arts & Photography

Zavala, Adriana

History & Criticism

Penn State University Press

Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition examines the relationships among women, nationalism, racial identity, and modernity before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution. In this innovative study, Adriana Zavala demonstrates that the image of Mexican womanhood, whether stereotyped as Indian, urban, modern, sexually “degenerate,” or otherwise, was symbolically charged in complex ways both before and after the so-called postrevolutionary cultural renaissance, and that crucial aspects of postrevolutionary culture remained rooted in nineteenth-century conceptions of woman as the bearer of cultural and social tradition. Focusing on images of women in a variety of contexts—including works by such artists as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, María Izquierdo, and Frida Kahlo, as well as films, pornographic photos, and beauty pageant advertisements—this book explores the complex and often fraught role played by visual culture in the social and political debates that raged over the concept of womanhood and the transformation of Mexican identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Review\nResurrecting Tenochtitlan excavates the fascinating process by which Mexico’s early twentieth-century artists, intellectuals, and government officials activated and materialized the foundational history of Tenochtitlan within Mexico City’s urban landscape. Delia Cosentino and Adriana Zavala provide a richly researched and illustrated account analyzing how these actors animated Mexico City as a territory in which the post-revolutionary ideologies of indigenismo and mestizaje could be articulated spatially, adding invaluable layers to our understanding of historical and contemporary Mexico City. -- Jennifer Jolly Published On: 2022-11-03\nHow Mexican artists and intellectuals created a new identity for modern Mexico City through its ties to Aztec Tenochtitlan.\nAfter archaeologists rediscovered a corner of the Templo Mayor in 1914, artists, intellectuals, and government officials attempted to revive Tenochtitlan as an instrument for reassessing Mexican national identity in the wake of the Revolution of 1910. What followed was a conceptual excavation of the original Mexica capital in relation to the transforming urban landscape of modern Mexico City. 
Revolutionary-era scholars took a renewed interest in sixteenth century maps as they recognized an intersection between Tenochtitlan and the foundation of a Spanish colonial settlement directly over it. Meanwhile, Mexico City developed with modern roads and expanded civic areas as agents of nationalism promoted concepts like indigenismo, the embrace of Indigenous cultural expressions. The promotion of artworks and new architectural projects such as Diego Rivera’s Anahuacalli Museum helped to make real the notion of a modern Tenochtitlan. Employing archival materials, newspaper reports, and art criticism from 1914 to 1964, Resurrecting Tenochtitlan connects art history with urban studies to reveal the construction of a complex physical and cultural layout for Mexico’s modern capital.

Resurrecting Tenochtitlan: Imagining the Aztec Capital in Modern Mexico City (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)

Cosentino, Delia

University of Texas Press

Accompanying the groundbreaking exhibition "Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life" at The New York Botanical Garden, this vibrant book provides a thrilling new perspective from which to appreciate Frida Kahlo’s paintings against the backdrop of her home and garden. Frida Kahlo created a natural paradise in her home at the Casa Azul in Mexico City. The plants cultivated there were vital components of some of her most original work, and an important part of her fascination with indigenous Mexican history and culture. From early paintings dating from the 1920s to her last known work, Kahlo’s use of botanical imagery reflects not only a love of the natural world, but also an evolving iconography. By focusing attention on this aspect of her art and its relationship to her garden sanctuary, the book demonstrates how the natural world provided Kahlo with inspiration. In addition to dazzling full-page reproductions of Kahlo’s paintings and works on paper, the book also includes essays presenting Kahlo as an avid collector of artifacts, animals, books, and plants. Archival photos trace the evolution of the Casa Azul over the course of the artist’s lifetime. Additionally, it explores Mexican architecture, landscape design, and gardens of the early 20th century. Fans of botanical art, garden enthusiasts, and Kahlo’s many devotees will find new and exciting imagesand information in this elegant, unique presentation of one of modern art’s most revered figures.

Frida Kahlo's Garden

Prestel

Tamayo reinterpretado

Oles, James

Indych-López, Anna

Coffey, Mark K.

Cordero Reiman, Karen

Debroise, Oliver

Pereda, Juan Carlos

Suckaer, Ingrid

TURNER PUBLICACIONES S.L.

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Books by Zavala, Adriana