Starting from Mexico: Estridentismo as an Avant-Garde Model

Abstract

The avant-garde movement Estridentismo (Stridentism) erupted in 1921, in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, with the distribution of the poet Manuel Maples Arce's subversive manifesto Actual No. 1, which disparaged local art and literature as retardataire and outlined an aesthetic plan based on models from Futurism and Dada. As a result of dialogues between artists – including Mexico's first generation of mural painters – and writers over the course of the 1920s, Estridentismo eventually expanded its original proposal, increasingly embracing socially responsible causes and allying itself with radical politics. It became emblematic of the complexities of avant-garde thought in Latin America, torn between formal innovation and social relevance, cosmopolitan dreams and local concerns. This paper uses the example of Estridentismo and its offshoot movement ¡30–30! to shift the geography of modernism, assessing how such movements upset Eurocentric narratives and force us to recognize the importance of other locales to the production of knowledge.

Keywords:

• Estridentismo
• Stridentism
• Mexican muralism
• avant-garde
• ¡30–30!
• global modernisms
• Latin American art
• Mexican art