Collecting Mexico: Museums, Monuments, and the Creation of National Identity

by Shelley E. Garrigan

Overview

Collecting Mexico centers on the ways in which aesthetics and commercialism intersected in officially sanctioned public collections and displays in late nineteenth-century Mexico. Shelley E. Garrigan approaches questions of origin, citizenry, membership, and difference by reconstructing the lineage of institutionally collected objects around which a modern Mexican identity was negotiated. In doing so, she arrives at a deeper understanding of the ways in which displayed objects become linked with nationalistic meaning and why they exert such persuasive force.

Spanning the Porfiriato period from 1867 to 1910, Collecting Mexico illuminates the creation and institutionalization of a Mexican cultural inheritance. Employing a wide range of examples—including the erection of public monuments, the culture of fine arts, and the representation of Mexico at the Paris World’s Fair of 1889—Garrigan pursues two strands of thought that weave together in surprising ways: national heritage as a transcendental value and patrimony as potential commercial interest.

Collecting Mexico shows that the patterns of institutional collecting reveal how Mexican public collections engendered social meaning. Using extensive archival materials, Garrigan’s close readings of the processes of collection building offer a new vantage point for viewing larger issues of identity, social position, and cultural/capital exchange.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816670932
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	03/28/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Shelley E. Garrigan is assistant professor of Spanish at North Carolina State University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction
1. Fine Art and Demand: Debating the Mexican National Canon (1876-1910)
2. Our Archaeology: Science, Citizenry, Patrimony, and the Museum
3. The Hidden Lives of Historical Monuments: Commerce, Fashion, and Memorial
4. Collections at the World’s Fair: Rereading Mexico in Paris, 1889
5. Collecting Numbers: Statistics and the Constructive Force of Deficiency
Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index