Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space, and Visuality in Venezuela, 1948-1958 Contributor(s): Blackmore, Lisa (Author) |
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ISBN: 0822964384 ISBN-13: 9780822964384 Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press OUR PRICE: $47.50 Product Type: Paperback Published: April 2017 * Not available - Not in print at this time * |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Latin America - South America - Architecture | Criticism - Art | Criticism & Theory |
Dewey: 987.063 |
LCCN: 2017014490 |
Series: Pitt Illuminations |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6" W x 8.9" (0.85 lbs) 240 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Latin America - Chronological Period - 1940's - Chronological Period - 1950's |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Winner of the Fernando Coronil Prize for best book about Venezuela, awarded by the Venezuelan Studies Section of LASA. In cultural history, the 1950s in Venezuela are commonly celebrated as a golden age of modernity, realized by a booming oil economy, dazzling modernist architecture, and nationwide modernization projects. But this is only half the story. In this path-breaking study, Lisa Blackmore reframes the concept of modernity as a complex cultural formation in which modern aesthetics became deeply entangled with authoritarian politics. Drawing on extensive archival research and presenting a wealth of previously unpublished visual materials, Blackmore revisits the decade-long dictatorship to unearth the spectacles of progress that offset repression and censorship. Analyses of a wide range of case studies--from housing projects to agricultural colonies, urban monuments to official exhibitions, and carnival processions to consumer culture--reveal the manifold apparatuses that mythologized visionary leadership, advocated technocratic development, and presented military rule as the only route to progress. Offering a sharp corrective to depoliticized accounts of the period, Spectacular Modernity instead exposes how Venezuelans were promised a radically transformed landscape in exchange for their democratic freedoms. |
Contributor Bio(s): Blackmore, Lisa: - Lisa Blackmore is lecturer of art history and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Essex and the author of Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space and Visuality in Venezuela, 1948-1958. |