Assembling a Mexican Past
More than any other nation in the Americas, Mexico has confronted the enduring artistic legacy of past eras--be they Zapotec sculptures unearthed in Oaxaca, sorrowing Virgins in side chapels of Baroque churches, or Porfirian-era public monuments--and from this has built narratives about the past. The selection and sequence takes on particular pressure during anniversaries--favored opportunities to think about the shape of time past. Given that the year 2020 marks a set of Mexican anniversaries-- the years 1520 (Spanish-Aztec War), 1820 (Independence), and 1920 (Revolution), we invite papers that examine how Greater Mexico's past has been configured and reconfigured over time through specific assemblages of and/or within objects and artworks. In seeking papers that address a diversity of subject matters and moments across time, we invite reflection on these questions: How do choices of such assemblages by artists, scholars, leaders, and/or patrons reflect and reshape the politics of a given moment? What is the relation between archeological assemblage and art historical narrative? What is the role of the context [or frame]--be it tomb, church, home, or museum--on Mexico's assembled past?
Field of Study:
Mexico
Latin America
North America
Before 1500 BCE
Modern (1800-present)
Chairs:
Delia A. Cosentino,DePaul University - dcosent1@depaul.edu
and
Barbara E. Mundy, - mundy@fordham.edu
