Click cover to enlarge

 Open access under:
CC BY 4.0

A contribution to: Space/Time

Edited by Jessica Gildersleeve and John McKeane

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 4

Modern Humanities Research Association

open

Abstract.  This paper examines Mexico City’s new Museo Nacional de Arte [National Museum of Art], addressing the implications of establishing a national museum, a form closely associated with nineteenth-century nation- building processes, in a global era in which the role of nation-states is said to be reduced. This study, which forms part of my wider research on Mexican visual culture in relation to state discourses, argues that the establishment of this new museum should be viewed in the context of the economic and political changes that began to take place during the 1980s as a result of International Monetary Fund restructuring policies. Focusing on the internal organization of this museum as a form of narrative, I approach it as a contemporary repositioning of the nation which constitutes a departure from the model of national identity developed during the seventy-year period of Partido Revolucionario Institucional [Institutional Revolutionary Party] rule. I propose that unlike the Museo Nacional de Antropología [National Museum of Anthropology], which embodied official identity constructions by emphasizing the pre-Hispanic origins of Mexican culture, MUNAL emphasizes its modern European foundations, attempting to inscribe it into a ‘universal’ narrative of Western civilization.

Full text.  This contribution is published as Open Access and can be downloaded as a PDF, or viewed as a PDF in your web browser, here:

Link to full text as PDF