Research Catalog

Title

Spectacular modernity : dictatorship, space, and visuality in Venezuela, 1948-1958 / Lisa Blackmore.

Author

Blackmore, Lisa

Publication

Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2017]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xii, pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

• "An analysis of how a decade of military rule in Venezuela produced a dominant ideology of progress so meticulously crafted that to this day audacious Modernist art and architecture and dictatorship are conflated under the term 'modernity'"--
• "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 Drawing on extensive archival research and presenting a wealth of previously unpublished visual materials, Blackmore revisits the decade-long dictatorship to unearth the spectacles of progress that offset repression and censorship.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 consumerculture--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"--

Series Statement

Illuminations : cultural formations of the Americas series

Uniform Title

Illuminations (Pittsburgh, Pa.)

Subject

• Dictatorship > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• Military government > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• Social change > Venezuela > History > 20th century
• Modernism (Aesthetics) > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• Art > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• Architecture > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• Spectacular, The > History > Venezuela > 20th century
• HISTORY / Latin America / South America
• ARCHITECTURE / Criticism
• ART / Criticism & Theory
• Venezuela > Cultural policy
• Venezuela > Politics and government > 1935-1958

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: Rethinking the Politics and Aesthetics of Modernity -- Part I. Official Libretto -- Telling Stories : The Historiographical Foundations of Military Rule -- Ruling Ideology : Radical Transformations of Space and Body -- Part II. Setting the Scene -- Nation Branding : From Covert Propaganda to Corporate Publicity -- Spectacular Visuality : Enframing the Landscape, Training the Gaze -- Exhibiting Modernity : Cultures of Display and the Dictator's Visionary Gaze -- Part III. Performing Progress -- Subjects on Stage : Organized Walking in Scripted Spaces -- Bringing Progress Home : Modern Mythologies in Daily Life -- Epilogue: Specters of Spectacle.

ISBN

• 9780822964384
• 0822964384

LCCN

• 2017014490
• 40027152054

OCLC

• ocn958781662
• 958781662
• SCSB-5890222

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries