-
El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social Justice
in MexicoAuthor(s): Alicia AzuelaSource: Art Journal, Vol. 52, No.
1, Political Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp.
82-87Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL:
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82
El Machete and Frente a Frente Art Committed to Social Justice
in Mexico
Alicia Azuela
uring the twenties and thirties, Mexican artists enlisted
journals to voice and illustrate their ideas concerning art and
society. El Machete [The ma-
chete] (1924-29) and Frente a Frente [Front to front (i.e., head
to head)] (1934-38) served as forums for debate on political issues
as well as on the appropriate subject matter and form of socially
relevant art. El Machete, launched by SOTPE, the Sindicato de
Obreros T6cnicos, Pintores y Es- cultores (Union of Technical
Workers, Painters, and Sculp- tors) in early 1924, advocated the
goals of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. For artists, this meant
making art and culture accessible to all people through public
murals and graphics of social criticism and political statement.
Initially, some of the artists of El Machete were influenced by the
Ateneo de la Juventud (Athenaeum of Youth), a group of artists and
intellectuals such as Jos6 Vasconcelos, Alfonso Reyes, and Antonio
Caso, who believed that the arts were both the highest expression
of the human spirit and a key force in social evolution. However,
gradually the publication shifted away from the ideology of the
ateneistas and became more aligned with the Mexican Communist
Party. Frente a Frente was the organ of LEAR, the Liga de
Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (League of Revolutionary
Writers and Artists), during the administration of the LAzaro Cair-
denas government (1934-40). Like El Machete, it advocated socially
relevant art for the people. Although both journals supported the
ideas of the Revolution, Frente a Frente was more closely aligned
with the Communist Party, specifically the declarations made at the
First Congress of Soviet Writers in Moscow in 1934, where socialist
realism became the Party's officially sanctioned art. It supported
a more militant graphic art, heavily influenced by similar radical
work being produced in Germany, France, the Soviet Union, and the
United States. The editorial policies, declarations, and illus-
trations of each publication expressed the commitment of artists to
contemporary social issues.
El Machete reflected the program of SOTPE, a union founded on
December 9, 1923, during a time when the Alvaro Obreg6n government
favored the unionization of workers and farmers. By unionizing,
artists joined their fellow "workers" in protecting their rights
and lobbying for good working conditions and fair wages. Further,
they indi- cated their desire to have a voice in national politics
and to
employ their art as a vehicle of political content. Many of the
union's members originally belonged to the Grupo Solidario del
Movimiento Obrero (Workers Movement Solidarity Group), founded in
1922 by Vicente Lombardo Toledano, who as director of the National
Preparatory School from 1920 to 1924 witnessed at first hand the
creation of the first murals and the protests against them. In
March 1924, a few months after its formation, SOTPE published the
first issue of El Machete.
The manifesto of SOTPE, published in the June 1924 issue of El
Machete, was signed by Xavier Guerrero, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro
Siquerios, and others. It presented the artists' view that art and
politics were inseparable, and that art had to be created within a
real historical context and to foster political goals. The
unionized artists asserted:
Our social reality is one of transition from an archaic order to
a new order. Those who create art must strive to include in their
work clear ideological propaganda for the people, art armed for
combat, that makes people aware of their history and their civil
rights. Beauty will nourish their [the people's] sensitivity, and
art will preserve their rich traditions.'
The manifesto addressed the "popular trinity"- soldiers,
farmers, and workers-as the essence of revolution- ary power. Those
who signed the manifesto became self- appointed protectors of this
trinity and identified with the ancestral Indian heritage and with
all oppressed peoples. The native Indian was hailed as the symbol
of the true Mexican, embodying the nation's spiritual and physical
vir- tues. The Indian was the essence of being Mexican, the
antithesis of criollismrno, the Spanish colonial establishment that
enslaved the people, the oppressive tyrant portrayed with hatred in
the corridos (popular ballads) published in El Machete. A union
between culture and the Indian race was also proclaimed: "Indian
tradition is the best of all traditions. It is great precisely
because, being of the people, it is collective, and that is why our
fundamental aesthetic goal is to socialize artistic expression and
to totally obliterate bour- geois individualism."2 Artists were
invited to become cul- tural workers, to join the social,
aesthetic, and educational battle initiated by SOTPE. The manifesto
proclaimed that "the triumph of the masses will lead not only to a
new social order, but also to art that is ethically, historically,
and
SPRING 1993
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cosmically of paramount importance for our people, compa- rable
to that of our remarkable indigenous culture."3 The principles set
forth in the manifesto determined the nature of SOTPE members'
work. It also meant a dogmatic spurning of those artists who did
not embrace the creed. SOTPE was particularly critical of the
Contempordneos, a group of writers, painters, and poets who
asserted that art was social but who opposed propaganda art. The
two groups engaged in a heated debate on issues of cultural
identity, the role of art within the context of nationalism,
internationalism, and tra- dition, and the relationship between art
and politics.
SOTPE's directive found its artistic expression in mu- rals and
in the graphic arts, with easel painting rejected on principle and
repudiated as aristocratic. A few months after the manifesto was
published, union artists launched a violent antigovernment campaign
that led to the cancellation of most of their contracts for murals.
As a consequence, artists turned to graphic arts, which became
equal in their minds in importance with murals as a means of public
expression. In August 1924, Siqueiros declared that the pages of El
Ma- chete were his "new walls."4 Designed to reach the people even
when government censorship barred its sale, El Machete was
originally produced in such a way that it could be pasted on walls
or folded as a newspaper for distribution.
El Machete addressed the masses. Texts dealing with national and
international workers' issues and Marxist theory were written by
both Mexicans and foreigners; among the latter were the German
Adolf Goldschmidt and the American Bertram D. Wolfe, both founding
members of the Mexican Communist Party. Although there was no art
section, the artists Guerrero, Rivera, and Siqueiros wrote articles
regu- larly. For a public that was largely illiterate,
illustrations were of critical importance in transmitting
information. SOTPE members often illustrated corridos with
political cartoons or drew visualizations of the essential content
of the articles. El Machete seldom gave their contributors a
by-line, symbol- ically stressing the rejection of bourgeois
individualism and identifying with anonymous collective labor. The
few articles that credited their authors did so with initials and
abbrevia- tions that varied from issue to issue. Siqueiros made the
humorous comment that this was a way of giving "the impres- sion
that the journal had many more collaborators and mak- ing it seem
more important."'5
The SOTPE aesthetic advocated that art be didactic and
combative. The result was a figurative narrative style appropriate
for conveying political messages to achieve the goals of creating a
social consciousness among people and of making the masses aware of
their historical reality and of their rights. The manifesto also
stressed the importance of indigenous artistic values, represented
by a popular art that preserved the Indian tradition. SOTPE artists
reasoned that since such art by definition belonged to the people,
using a similar style would make their own art a clear and
effective form of communication. With this in mind, they took
advan-
tage of the graphic work of Jean Charlot (1898-1979), a
Frenchman who had arrived in Mexico in 1922. Charlot had a deep
appreciation of the Mexican popular graphic tradition of the
nineteenth century, spendidly exemplified by Jos6 Gua- dalupe
Posada (1862-1913), and he introduced the woodcut technique to
Guerrero and Siqueiros, who became so enthu- siastic about its
potential for mass communication that they introduced it to El
Machete.
Both the woodcut technique and the social and histori- cal
subject matter were innovative, with popular interests represented
in a popular style that prevented images from falling into the
heavily overstated academic style evident in Soviet socialist
realism. El Machete artists working in wood- cut faced technical
limitations; as a result, two colors, red and black, were used only
on the masthead (fig. 1). Further, the artists' strong objections
to nonobjective art probably prevented them from employing
typography as a design element.
Among the images typical of El Machete's early period is a
woodcut by Siqueiros entitled La Unidad del Campesino el Soldado y
el Obrero [The unity of farmers, soldiers, and workers], which
illustrated a ballad by Graciela Amador, "La Caida de los Ricos y
la Construcci6n de un Nuevo Orden" [The fall of the rich and the
construction of a new order] (fig. 2), which appeared in the issue
of April 1-15, 1924. The image combines the aesthetic values of
murals with the formal qualities of the woodcut. Strong, bold
contours outline generalized symbolic figures, whose massive volume
recalls Siqueiros's previous work in murals. Further, there is an
iconographic reference to popular art in the presentation of the
"trilogy" of the worker, farm laborer, and soldier, whose forms
closely resemble straw figurines made by artisans in the state of
Puebla. The frontally positioned foreground fig- ures have almost
identical features; only their dress specifies distinct roles and
classes. The massed faces behind are similarly repetitive, with
those in the background barely distinguishable among the many hats.
The image was accom- panied by two messages: on the right, "Los
tres somos victimas" (We three are victims); on the left, "Los tres
somos hermanos" (We three are brothers). The woodcut is typical of
many of the illustrations appearing in El Machete before the
publication became an organ of the Communist Party. Al- though
recalling the ateneista goal of producing murals that stimulated
great virtues, the images in El Machete not only sought to
encourage noble behavior but also to present a social message to
awaken class consciousness.
Unlike other El Machete artists who were muralists, Jos6 Clement
Orozco was also an experienced cartoonist. His cartoons, which
first appeared in the ninth issue of August 21-28, 1924, when the
Ministry of Education interrupted payment for the murals at the
National Preparatory School, lightened the tone of the magazine by
conveying a moment or personality with a few strokes of India ink.
Esperan Sonrientes a los Nuevos Diputados [Smiling, they wait for
the new depu-
ART JOURNAL
83
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i;3A
Machete pu smve R
RiaeeASESINOS! & QINNes/
4 /is
COImsPo Alp iv r P
eat7
. . . . . . . . . . . . .6 t
-P -Ml M4 Tak-
AN'.
N *Pip* /d e
L T,- a' e e t i t e . ..ld..la.. A
to MOWa d t dt t h Ia
Ogg. v a n r l m d d a ia ehqe d t a
P.,h i ie c it e s a n * a e i e r g i a
NoP !"mm,
CAWi w ...........sdesde a~epa e e u a~sen w
C, 11 A v,
siiiiiii
i~i~iiiiiiiiimmiim:i A I Owiiiiiiiiiiii
FIG. 1 Xavier Guerrero, masthead, El Machete [The machete]
(March 1-15, 1924) The masthead remained in use until November
1924.
-
4f
F I G. 2 David Alfaro Siqueiros, La Unidad del Campesino el
Soldado y el Obrero [The unity of farmers, soldiers, and workers],
El Machete [The machete] (April 1-15,1924): 5.
ties] (fig. 3) illustrates Orozco's acid critique of
politicians. Both the style and theme recall his series of
watercolors of prostitutes entitled Casa de Lagrimas [House of
tears] (1912- 13) and his ink drawings of perverse girls entitled
Las Mu- chachas [The girls] (1914-15).
El Machete's vicious critique of the government in- creased as
did the artists' disagreement with measures taken by President
Obreg6n at the end of his term. Their indigna- tion became open
disapproval when the government failed to send police to defend the
Orozco and Siqueiros murals at the National Preparatory School
against vandalization by a group of students who claimed that the
murals were immoral, subversive, and grotesque-inappropriate for an
academic institution. Shortly after this incident, the new
Education Minister, Manuel Puig Cassauranc, warned artists to stop
their attacks on the government and threatened to cancel their
mural contracts. The unionized artists split: some followed
Siqueiros's stand for freedom of artistic expression; others, led
by Rivera, were willing to compromise, sacrificing their artistic
freedom to retain their jobs. In this fashion, Rivera secured his
position as the official artist of the Plutarco Eliais Calles
administration (1924-28). The firm stand of Siqueiros and his
followers reflected a radicalization of the union and exposed the
group's internal conflicts. This standoff led both to the demise of
SOTPE and to the cancellation of the mural- ists' contracts in
December 1924.
After the dissolution of SOTPE, the Communist Party adopted El
Machete as its official organ. A new editorial policy modified the
format and masthead, emphasized politi- cal analysis, and replaced
original art work with photo- graphs. El Machete voiced artists'
growing discontent with the new administration's labor,
agricultural, cultural, and
foreign policies. Suffering unemployment and political re-
pression, many opposition artists found work in Guadalajara,
emigrated to the United States, or abandoned their artistic
endeavors. President Calles intensified his repressive tactics
during the 1928 presidential campaign, which peaked in 1929 with
the persecution of his opponents, Jose Vasconcelos of the
Antireelectionist Party and Manuel Rodriquez Triana of the
Communist Party. Vasconcelos fled to the United States, the victim
of electoral fraud, and in July 1929 both the Communist Party and
its organ were forced underground until the Calles period of veiled
dictatorship ended in 1934. Re- named El Machete Clandestino [The
underground machete], the journal suffered from lack of funds and
from the absence of its most important contributors. Although it
published in 1935, the original high-quality graphics were not
equaled except for occasional contributions from LEAR artists.
In 1934, Laizaro Cairdenas was elected as a candidate of the
Calles-controlled PNR, the Partido Nacional Revolu- cionario
(National Revolutionary Party). Once in office, Cair- denas made
significant reforms, initiating an era of renewed political
freedom. Although the Mexican Communist Party had rejected his
Six-Year Plan, it was gradually won over by Cairdenas's economic,
political, and educational measures, which restored the rights of
workers to organize and strike. Cairdenas's policies were
consistent with the Popular Front adopted by the Communist Party in
June 1933; as a result, the Party could publish openly, and
cooperation between artists and intellectuals and the government
ensued.
In early 1934, Leopoldo MWndez, Pablo O'Higgins, Juan de la
Cabada, and Luis Arenal founded the League of Revolutionary Writers
and Artists (LEAR) in response to the resolutions adopted at the
Communist International. Closely associated with the Communist
Party, LEAR defined itself as a proletarian organization. Its
mission was to "restore diplo- matic relations between Mexico and
Soviet Russia [sus- pended in 1930], the international bastion of
true culture for the productive masses . . . [and to] legalize the
Communist
speran Srientes a s Nuoevs Diaos
Bendat Ianm diputados "confederados hiosdeSindica erndre
........... ..sto d Go v'ad e
!
FIG. 3 Jos6 Clemente Orozco, Esperan Sonrientes a los Nuevos
Diputados [Smiling, they wait for the new deputies], El Machete
[The machete] (August 21-28,1924): 4.
ART JOURNAL
85
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86
sit, I
FIG. 4 Josd Chavez Morado, La Piiiata or Diciembre [December],
Frente a Frente [Front to front] (April 1936): 18.
B27
MR
NO
IVR IRA, WU
M"n "MOM .......
..... . it
aw.- Sm mum 70d PS iii who Eno .
. . . . .
4-N I, you
& . ..... .... .......
0?5
"lag
FIG. 5 Jos6 ChAvez Morado, untitled, Frente a Frente [Front to
front] (April 1936): 22.
Party and raise the class consciousness of the revolutionary
proletariat."6 LEAR advocated the use of culture as a weapon
against fascism, Nazism, imperialism, and Mexican authorities,
referred to as "social fascists." The sectarian tone of this
platform responded to the increasing threat of international
fascism. On October 22, 1935, the league issued a "Call for the
Unity of Intellectual and Cultural Organizations of the Country"
that opened its doors to all political ideologies opposed to
fascism. Shortly thereafter, in 1936, LEAR became formally
independent of the Mexican Communist Party, without breaking with
the institution or its ideology, and openly supported
Cairdenas.
LEAR reformulated its principles as a Popular-Front
organization. In February 1936, Judin de la Cabada, LEAR's
president, described the league as "a broad-based cultural front
organization of intellectual workers focused on the struggle
against fascism, imperialism, and war."7 In August 1936, the league
declared that its goal was to unite all artists, writers, and
intellectuals in discussing "the attitudes that should be adopted
regarding the problems of Mexico and the world brought on by
fascism... [in order] to make culture available to the working
masses, study their problems, help them in their struggle for
better living conditions, capitalize on the governments'
progressive tendencies, and make their [LEAR's] principles widely
known."8 Despite its nonpartisan goals, LEAR maintained that "the
basic social function of a revolutionary intellectual is to be an
active militant, a skillful guide capable of pointing out the
dangers that culture con- fronts at this time."'9
The publication that voiced the political ideology of LEAR was
Frente a Frente. Planned as a monthly, it ap- peared irregularly
from November 1934 to early 1938. Each issue was published in an
average edition of 2,000 copies, increasing to as many as 10,000 at
its peak. Unlike El Machete, Frente a Frente was distributed to
other countries where similar political groups were active, such as
the United States and Panama. The journal's name, "Front to Front,"
or "Head to Head," was a play on words alluding to the slogan
"Class against Class," adopted by the Sixth International
Communist Congress in 1928.10 It reflected the league's commitment
to pursue open class confrontation and its initial combative
relationship with the Cairdenas administration.
The contents of Frente a Frente were diverse. They included
sections on current events, proletarian literature, books, music,
architecture, science, and education. Occa- sionally, items from
foreign journals, such as Commune (France) and New Masses (United
States), were published. The art section featured art theory,
critical reviews, an- nouncements, and contemporary issues. It was
common for artists who were independent of the league's directive
to be harshly criticized.
Illustrations in Frente a Frente reflected LEAR's pref- erence
for the "public" arts of graphics, drawings, photogra- phy,
photomontage, and mural painting focused on prole- tarian issues
and protest. While the same aesthetic premises were applied in
Frente a Frente as in El Machete, visual images in the former
assumed a more combative tone in their fight against fascism and
their support of the workers' class struggle. The first issues
included woodcuts, drawings, lithographs, and photographs; later
issues, however, repro- duced only photographs and photomontages.
An outstanding photomontage appeared on the cover of the May 1936
issue (pl. 7, p. 15). It included a photograph by Manuel Alvarez
Bravo entitled Obrero en Huelga Asesinado [Striking worker
assassinated]. A portion of the photograph, showing the dead man's
head and torso, is juxtaposed with images of Calles, Benito
Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler, associating the powerful Mexican
politican with European fascists.
Stylistically, illustrations in Frente a Frente often showed a
mixture of elements from German Expressionism, Mexican graphics,
and, to a lesser extent, Soviet graphics. Mexican artists were
particularly influenced by the work of Max Beckman, George Grosz,
John Heartfield, and Emil Nolde, most of whom had been exhibited in
Mexico." LEAR artists were especially sensitive to the manner in
which the Germans used the woodcut technique to heighten the
expres-
SPRING 1993
-
sive possibilities of strong lines and highly pronounced fea-
tures. The Mexicans used the dramatic potential in woodcuts to
emphasize social injustice rather than the mental anguish of human
psychology. In one example by Jose Chaivez Morado (fig. 4), a
worker is shown as a pifiata in December, being struck by a priest
while men, women, and children applaud. The features of the fat,
bourgeois man on the right recall Nolde's grotesque and malevolent
faces, while the simplified forms and bold features of the other
figures and the use of parallel lines and cross-hatchings are
devices typical of the German Expressionists. Among the artists who
successfully combined Mexican and foreign influences without
resorting to melodramatic folkloric representations were O'Higgins,
Gabriel Fernaindez Ledesma, MWndez, ChAvez Morado, Orozco, and
Siqueiros. In one print appearing in the April 1936 issue of Frente
a Frente, ChAvez Morado depicts the attack made by a fascist group
known as the "Golden Shirts" on a demonstration of Communist
students, workers, and farmers that occurred on November 20, 1935
(fig. 5). ChAvez Morado shows the armed and mounted aggressors
charging the crowd and killing several people. The assailants are
dressed in military attire, thereby condemning both the military
for sympathizing with the fascists and the govern- ment for not
preventing the attack. Chevez Morado suc- cessfully combined the
naive quality of Posada's early repre- sentations of combat and
street fights (especially Posada's El Niquel o Manifestacion
Publica Antireeleccionista [Public demonstration against
reelection]) with the strong linear tech- nique and tonal contrast
of contemporary German graphics.
The leading figures of LEAR, who were members of the Communist
Party, pressured the group to follow the Party directives. Although
the league attempted to open its ranks to radicals and liberals
alike, the rigidity of the Party mem- bers defeated the effort. The
Stalinists maintained that repre- sentationalism was the only
acceptable style and the worker the only subject of art. Conflict
arose between Stalinists and the followers of Trotsky, who asserted
that creativity required freedom. Although the journal of the
Trotskyists, Clave [Key], seldom covered art, it was a forum of
opposition to the Stalinist faction. Clave published the 1938
manifesto "Por un arte revolucionario independiente" [Towards a
free revolu- tionary art], which was signed by Andrd Breton and
Rivera although Breton and Trotsky were considered its intellectual
authors (both were in Mexico in 1938). Attacking the position that
the state or a political party had the right to impose criteria on
art form and content, the manifesto declared:
True art, art that is not molded into stereotyped models but
attempts to express the internal needs of man and contempo- rary
humanity, cannot fail to be revolutionary. This means that it
cannot fail to strive for a complete and radical recon- struction
of society, even if only to liberate intellectual cre- ativity from
its chains and to allow humanity to reach the heights that only
isolated geniuses have achieved in the past.'2
Trotskyists considered the attempt to enclose art within pre-
established guidelines to be a threat to the very essence of art
and, consequently, to its revolutionary potential. Their attack on
the Communist definition of art was a veiled attack on Stalin. Many
artists and intellectuals who shared this view withdrew from
LEAR.
Another faction of LEAR, including Raul Anguiano, JuAn O'Gorman,
O'Higgins, and ChAvez Morado, refused to use the league as a means
of securing work regardless of the employer's political
convictions. Although these members believed in the original
doctrine of LEAR and were not opposed to President CArdenas's
policies, they resigned from the league at the end of 1938 because
they considered it vital to act independently in order to preserve
their ideological integrity. This faction subsequently founded the
Taller de la Graifica Popular (Popular Graphics Workshop), which
pro- vided top-quality art instruction and production. These con-
flicts within the league led to administrative chaos and
bureaucracy, and ultimately to the demise of LEAR and Frente a
Frente in early 1938.
El Machete and Frente a Frente were only two of the many Mexican
publications concerned with art during the twenties and thirties.
They document the persistent presence of cultural issues and debate
in public life during these years. Both are a testimony to artists'
conviction that their work should be at the service of society.4
Notes I wish to thank Virginia Marquardt, Clara Bargellini, Juan
Puig, Maria O'Higgins, Pilar Garcia, Karen Cordero, and Fausto
Ramirez for their generous assistance and to acknowledge Susannah
Glusker for her translation. 1. SOTPE, "Manifesto del Sindicato de
Obreros Tdcnicos, Pintores y Escultores," El Machete [The machete],
no. 7 (June 1924): 4. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. David Alfar Siqueiros,
Me Ilamaban El Coronelazo [1 was called the Colonel] (Mexico City:
Editorial Grijalvo, 1977): 217. 5. Ibid. 6. "Cuatro demandas de la
Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios ante el presidente de
la Rep6blica" [Four demands by the League of Revolutionary Writers
and Artists to the president of the Republic], cited in Elizabeth
Fuentes, "La Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios: Una
producci6n artistica compremetida" [The League of Revolutionary
Writers and Artists: A committed artistic production], Ph.D. diss.
(Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de M6xico, 1991), 38.
7. Judn de la Cabada, letter to the editor of El Universal Gr6fica
[Universal graphics], February 1, 1936, Leopoldo M6ndez Archives.
8. LEAR Executive Committee, "Notas y actividades de la LEAR"
[Notes and activities of LEARI, Frente a Frente [Front to front]
(August 1936): 23. 9. Ibid. 10. See Reyes Palma Francisco,
"Radicalismo artistico en el M6xico de los afios 30, un repuesta
colectiva a la crisis" [Artistic radicalism in Mexico in the 1930s:
Collective responses to the crisis], Artes Pldsticas [Plastic arts]
2 (December 1988- February 1989): 7. 11. An exhibition of
contemporary graphics was organized by Gabriel Fernandez Ledesma in
1931 at the Salon del Arte in Mexico City. For an illustration of
the poster announcing the exhibition, see Judith Alanis Figueroa,
Gabriel Ferndndez Ledesma (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional
Aut6noma de M6xico, 1985), 163. 12. Andr6 Breton and Diego de
Rivera, "Por un arte revolucionario independiente" [Towards a free
revolutionary art], Clave [Key] (October 1938): 10.
A L I C I A AZ U E L A, of the Instituto de Investigaciones
Esteticas, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mixico, is preparing a
bilingual book titled The Presence of Mexican Art in the United
States, 1929-1945.
ART JOURNAL
87
Article Contentsp. 82p. 83p. [84]p. 85p. 86p. 87
Issue Table of ContentsArt Journal, Vol. 52, No. 1, Political
Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp. 1-120Front Matter
[pp. 1-118]Covers of Political Journals, 1910-40 [pp. 8-17]Editor's
StatementThe Nexus of Art and Politics Seen through Political
Journals, 1910-40 [pp. 20-21]
Art of the Commune: Politics and Art in Soviet Journals, 1917-20
[pp. 24-33]From the Avant-Garde to "Proletarian Art": The Emigr
Hungarian Journals Egysg and Akasztott Ember, 1922-23 [pp.
34-45]War, Revolution, and the Transformation of the German Humor
Magazine, 1914-27 [pp. 46-54]Art and Politics in Spain, 1928-36
[pp. 55-60]Surrealists, Stalinists, and Trotskyists: Theories of
Art and Revolution in France between the Wars [pp. 61-68]Concerning
Art and Politics in Yugoslavia during the 1930s [pp. 69-71]Art on
the Political Front in America: From The Liberator to Art Front
[pp. 72-81]El Machete and Frente a Frente: Art Committed to Social
Justice in Mexico [pp. 82-87]Exhibition ReviewReview: Jusepe de
Ribera [pp. 90-92]
Book ReviewsReview: Art and Political Agendas [pp.
94-95+97+99]Review: Cultural Moments [pp. 99-101]Review: Cultural
Property [pp. 103-107]Review: Theory of the Avant-Garde [pp.
107+109-111]
Books and Catalogues Received [pp. 114-115+117+119-120]Back
Matter