Abstract

BARRIOS-DE-LA-MORA, Santiago. The Diversification of Art under a Vertical Comand Mexico: A Work of Art and the Salinas’s Political-Cultural Elite (New York, 1990). Estud. hist. mod. contemp. Mex [online]. 2022, n.spe2, pp.191-222.  Epub June 26, 2023. ISSN 0185-2620.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iih.24485004e.2022.1e.77711.

The modernizing project of the questioned-elect president Carlos Salinas de Gortari involved strengthening ties with the United States in all the areas of the bilateral relationship. The reactivation of the legitimization mechanisms and cultural diplomacy were central strategies of his government. The moment created in New York by the exhibition Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries (1990) and more than two hundred parallel events were very important in this regard. They were integrated into the program Mexico: A Work of Art, operated by the Salinas cultural bureaucracy. Through interviews and Mexican and American documents, the present work allows us to identify continuities and ruptures of the political practices of this bureaucracy, as well as throwing light on the 1990’s New York events. By playing a coordinator-mediator role, these cultural operators were able to reactivate a type of state centralization, circumvent the demands of liberalization and turned culture back into a profitable diplomatic and legitimizing mechanism.

Keywords : Transnational Cultural Networks; Political Practices; Rockefeller Foundation; Jorge Alberto Lozoya; Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries; MCINY; Mexican Art.

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