CSP 51 Art of Revolution and Resistance in Twentieth-Century Mexico and the United States

This team-taught, interdisciplinary course examines the art of revolution and resistance in 20th-century Mexico and the United States, from the Mexican Revolution to the Chicana/o movement to the present. We will focus on the ways in which artists, writers, and intellectuals participated in the social and cultural programs of the Mexican Revolution, and how those practices were translated, reframed and engaged by artists, writers, and intellectuals in the United States across the course of the twentieth century. We will also consider the rise of the Chicana/o cultural movement, which often drew upon themes and images from revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexican art, but developed its own forms and traditions. The course will examine major concepts that have shaped contemporary cultural discourse and artistic expression in Mexico and the United States, including modernism, indigenismo, "primitivism," and "racial art," national and personal identities, feminism, patriarchy, gender, sexuality, and immigration. We will study the work of a variety of artists, such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Elizabeth Catlett, Isamu Noguchi, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, ASCO, and Minerva Cuevas, among others. Special attention will be paid to transnational artistic collaborations and dialogues among artists, writers, and critics who sought (and seek) to create a more equitable world. The course will pay particular attention to definitions of art, artist, community, and political engagement in both the United States and Mexico. The class will make several field trips to LA’s premier local arts and cultural institutions to see exhibitions and attend related events. Students will use a variety of written texts and visual sources as the basis of their essays, including historical documents, writings of artists and intellectuals, photography, mural painting, sculpture, performance, and installation.