Mid-twentieth-century Guatemalan modernism and the anesthetic of progress
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5674416 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael D Kirkpatrick (0000-0002-5932-6588, University of Saskatchewan) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-21 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0826-3663 • E-ISSN: 2333-1461 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08263663.2014.978152 |
| OpenAlex | W1598481836 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
This article uses Guatemala City’s Centro Cívico as a point of departure to consider the wider implications of shared Western epistemological assumptions during the Cold War. It argues that an “esthetic of progress”, based on notions of economic development as well as teleological beliefs about historical change, became a dominant artistic motif in mid-twentieth-century Guatemalan modernism, emblematic of the artists belonging to the Generation of 1940. Owing to the homogenizing tendencies of the idea of progress and its universality within Guatemalan politics, however, the article suggests that the esthetic of progress also possessed anesthetic qualities that muted its political importance. In so doing, the work of the Generation of 1940 appealed to a wide variety of political actors and the “anesthetic of progress” helps to explain why the Centro Cívico project was conceived and constructed by governments of opposing ideological convictions
Aesthetics · Cold war · Environmental ethics · Ideology · Modernism (music · Motif (music · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Teleology · Universality (dynamical systems · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America · Politics and Society in Latin America · History · Law · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
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