{"product_id":"mexican-modernity-the-avant-garde-and-the-technological-revolution-ruben-gallo","title":"Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution \/ Rubén Gallo","description":"\u003cp\u003eMIT Press, 2010. Softcover. New. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eA secret history of Mexican modernity told through five artifacts—cameras, typewriters, radio, cement, stadiums—and the radical transformation of art and literature they brought about in the 1920s and 1930s.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eMexican Modernity\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, Rubén Gallo tells the story of a second Mexican Revolution, a battle fought on the front of cultural representation. The new revolutionaries were not rebels or outlaws but artists and writers; their weapons were cameras, typewriters, radios, and other technological artifacts, and their goal was not to topple a dictator but to dethrone nineteenth-century aesthetics. Gallo tells the story of this other revolution by focusing on five artifacts that left a deep mark on the literature and the arts of the 1920s and 1930s: the camera and its novel techniques for seeing the modern world; the typewriter and its mechanization of literary aesthetics; radio and poetic experiments with wireless communication; cement architecture and its celebration of functional internationalism; and the stadium and its deployment as a mass medium for political spectacle.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGallo traces the ways artists and writers, armed with these artifacts, revolutionized representation by breaking with the traditional modes of production that had dominated Mexican cultural practices: Tina Modotti rose against the conventions of \"artistic\" photography by promoting a radically modern photographic aesthetics; typewriting authors rejected the literary precepts of modernismo to celebrate the stridencies of mechanical writing; and young architects abandoned older building materials for the symbolic strength of reinforced concrete.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGallo uncovers a secret history of Mexican modernity that includes a number of fascinating episodes: the pictorialist backlash against Modotti and Edward Weston; the postcolonial Remingtont typewriter; Mexican radio in the North Pole; the campaign to aestheticize cement through journals and artistic competitions; and the protofascist political spectacles held at Mexico City's National Stadium in the 1920s.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Desierto Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46835919093926,"sku":null,"price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0659\/3465\/5654\/files\/mexicanmodernity.webp?v=1763053630","url":"https:\/\/249f2c-1b.myshopify.com\/products\/mexican-modernity-the-avant-garde-and-the-technological-revolution-ruben-gallo","provider":"DESIERTO BOOKS","version":"1.0","type":"link"}