Spectacular Modernity by Lisa Blackmore
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 Drawing on extensive archival research and presenting a wealth of previously unpublished visual materials, Blackmore revisits the decade-long dictatorship to unearth the spectacles of progress that offset repression and censorship.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 consumer culture--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.
Lisa Blackmore is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich and will join the school of philosophy and art history at the University of Essex as a lecturer in art history and interdisciplinary studies in 2017. She has taught at the Univers
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780822964384 |
| ISBN 10 | 0822964384 |
| Title | Spectacular Modernity |
| Author | Lisa Blackmore |
| Series | Illuminations |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh Press |
| Year published | 2017-04-24 |
| Number of pages | 240 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |