Creating P疸zcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building Under L痙aro C疵denas (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781477314203)

LASA Visual Culture Studies Section Book Prize, Latin American Studies Association (LASA)

In the 1930s, the artistic and cultural patronage of celebrated Mexican president L痙aro C疵denas transformed a small Michoac疣 city, P疸zcuaro, into a popular center for national tourism. C疵denas commissioned public monuments and archeological excavations; supported new schools, libraries, and a public theater; developed tourism sites and infrastructure, including the Museo de Artes e Industrias Populares; and hired artists to paint murals celebrating regional history, traditions, and culture. The creation of P疸zcuaro was formative for Mexico; not only did it provide an early model for regional economic and cultural development, but it also helped establish some of Mexico's most enduring national myths, rituals, and institutions.

In Creating P疸zcuaro, Creating Mexico, Jennifer Jolly argues that P疸zcuaro became a microcosm of cultural power during the 1930s and that we find the foundations of modern Mexico in its creation. Her extensive historical and archival research reveals how C疵denas and the artists and intellectuals who worked with him used cultural patronage as a guise for radical modernization in the region. Jolly demonstrates that the P疸zcuaro project helped define a new modern body politic for Mexico, in which the population was asked to emulate C疵denas by touring the country and seeing and embracing its land, history, and people. Ultimately, by offering Mexicans a means to identify and engage with power and privilege, the creation of P疸zcuaro placed art and tourism at the center of Mexico's postrevolutionary nation building project.