Room 202.03

In 1920s Latin America, metropolises such as Mexico City, Lima and Buenos Aires grew by virtue of economic and technological development. This process was shaped, however, by a lack of planning in their demographic and physical expansion, as well as by the prolongation of colonial socioeconomic structures. This paradox inflamed a climate of violence and social struggle that the art of the time connected with. The return of many artists from their maiden voyages around Europe or the United States brought them into confrontation with the contradictions of modernity in their territories, often finding resources in the pre-colonial legacy or popular culture to imagine a modern autochthonous space.    

The term “Stridentopolis” came into being in Mexico City in the 1920s. In this sprawling city, immersed in an atmosphere of national reconstruction arising from the Mexican Revolution, broad avenues surfaced and middle class residential areas became consolidated. Within this context, Manuel Maples Arce, in his manifesto Actual N.º 1, called for action against the old on behalf of Stridentism, a movement propelled by cultural agitators and artists undertaking collective and urban subversive actions which materialised in spaces such as magazines, radio, schools, trade unions and cafés. Thus, Stridentopolis broke with European colonial reference points to vindicate another kind of beauty — electricity pylons, cars, factories, skyscrapers — juxtaposing pre-Hispanic precedents. Equally, it extolled the figure of the urban worker, a shaper of new collectives that were gaining visibility and initiating demands and the seeds of revolt. In parallel in Argentina, this modern urban development was reflected in the work of artists who employed photography, engraving and cinema as mediums to champion the technological advances of the era and the new monuments of national affirmation.