Abstract

COFFEY, Mary K.. "Without Any of the Seductions of Art": On Orozco's Misogyny and Public Art in the Americas. An. Inst. Investig. Estét [online]. 2003, vol.25, n.83, pp.99-119. ISSN 0185-1276.

This paper examines the purported misogyny of José Clemente Orozco's representations of women by situating one of his more egregious images -the grinning prostitute in his 1934 mural Catharsis- within the aesthetic and political discursive context of international modernism, industrial modernity, and urban development. By locating the production of this mural within a particular moment in postrevolutionary Mexico and attending to the political significance of its venue, the essay suggests that Orozco's image might best be understood as a critique of academic allegory in general, and more specifically, a critique of the renewal of Porfirian civic rhetoric with the completion of the Palace of Fine Arts. By interrogating Orozco's gendered iconography in this way, I argue we are better able to understand how female allegory, public art, and the nation-state were being articulated in postrevolutionary Mexico, thereby enabling an appreciation of both the insights and limits of Orozco's gendered iconography.

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