Art History from Home: Picturing the Mexican Revolution

Thurs, Nov 19, 2020, 12 pm

Online, via Zoom

As Mexico emerged from its revolution in 1920, artists looked for ways to respond to new formations of public life. Seeking to connect native culture and art with a modernist sensibility, new, sometimes romanticized, depictions of peasant life took center stage. This session will explore how the work of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Frida Kahlo, Alfredo Ramos Martinez, and others sought to forge an art form responsive to the radical cultural transformations happening in Mexico at that time. 

Grant Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of art history at the University of Southern California and a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney. His dissertation, Sheila Hicks: Weaving to the World, traces the first critical history of the prolific American artist, weaver, and pioneer of global contemporary art. An active curator, critic, and writer, he has published writing in Artforum, Frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, Garage, and Performa, where he was a writer-in-residence from 2012 to 2014.

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