Avant-garde art and criticism in Francoist Spain / Paula Barreiro López.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barreiro López, Paula, author.

Series:

Value, art, politics ; 12.

Value: Art: Politics ; 12

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art--Spain--History--20th century.

Art.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics)--Spain--History--20th century.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics).

History.

Spain.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 352 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2017.

Summary:

This groundbreaking book surveys the shifts in the aesthetic discourse and artistic practises that decisively influenced the shaping of the avant-garde during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975). On the basis of extensive, so far unpublished, archival material, it discusses the intellectual and cultural field as an important battlefield for fighting the regime from within. The study opens with a comprehensive historical overview on the cultural world from the end of the Spanish Civil War throughout Francoism and reveals for the first time the broader intellectual and cultural context of vanguard art considering the special relations and negotiation processes between artist, critics and institutions during a major gap in the historiography of post-war Spanish culture: the late Franco dictatorship (1959-1975). It then analyses in depth the important role that a group of art critics played as theoreticians and peers in key artistic movements from the 1950s onwards. Using their extensive international networks in the midst of the Cold War period, they decisively influenced the aesthetic and cultural debates of their time and very concretely helped shaping a completely new discourse for the avant-garde in Spain. This book discusses the creation of this new discourse that linked culture and ethics/politics and analyses its impact on the intellectual and artistic landscape (visual, print and exhibition culture) during the last decades of Franco's regime.

Contents:

Modernism(s)-avant-garde(s). Spain: an integrated case? 8

Methods, structure and sequence 14

1 From Guernica to the international alliances: culture, art and society 21

The cultural battle lines of the Civil War 22

The 'bread' of the victors: art and culture under autarky 40

'We welcome you, Americans, with joy!': international and domestic cultural policies in the early 1950s 55

2 'Spain is different': art, culture and propaganda in the era of the consumer society 71

The language of technocracy 73

The equivocal fruits of apertura 89

Dissent in the twilight of Francoism 107

3 Critics and networks: assuming militant criticism 121

Critical networks 122

Militant criticism 'all' Argan' 137

Militant critics in Spain 149

4 The 'Marxization' of art criticism: information, ideology and anti-Francoism 164

Marx through 'the backroom' 166

'Widening the cracks': Nulla aesthetica sine ethica 181

Militant criticism at the service of anti-Francoism 193

Mediations: militant critics providing 'information' and 'ideology' 209

5 Adoption(s), adaptations(s) and artistic praxis 221

The sociological turn(s) of the militant critics 222

'Solutions of transformation': militant critics and avant-garde artists in collaboration 233

The nature of the avant-garde: a conflicting issue 272.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781781383223

1781383227

OCLC:

952183131