The State of Culture: Institutional Patrimony in Post -Revolutionary Mexico

466 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.Through an analysis of four different cultural institutions, the articulation between "the people" and national culture is foregrounded as a governmental claim, a pursuit of popular allegiance and affiliation that while rhetorical has nevertheless solidified into "truth." The murals on permanent display in the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) are presented as representatives of a coherent and legible movement through which the "People" can discern the coordinates of their national identity. The Museo Nacional de Historia (National Museum of History) utilizes mural-art to situate the historical objects on display into didactic lessons that seek to cultivate "civic consciousness" in the visitor. The intertextual dynamic between the Palacio Cortes (Cortez' Palace), the regional history museum it has housed since 1971, and a mural-cycle painted on site by Diego Rivera in 1929, constructs the region of Morelos and its popular movement---Zapatismo---as icons of national character. Finally, the Museo Nacional de Arte (National Museum of Art) presents a narrative of national art that re-casts Mexican muralism and its governmental support into a story of private patronage through which cultural consumption and the financial support of the arts are promoted as modes of citizenship.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD