The Stridentist Movement in Mexico: The Avant-Garde and Cultural Change in the 1920s (review)
Since die 1990s there has been an explosion of interest in estridentismo—the Mexican answer to Italian Futurism—a movement that was born in 1921 when the poet Manuel Maples Arce issued his first manifesto. In recent years, several anthologies and illustrated catalogues have brought together many of the surviving manifestos, pamphlets, original paintings, and other visual materials. In recent years, there have also been several U.S. dissertations devoted to estridentismo, as well as several books in English that include chapters on the movement, including Vicky Unruh's The Latin American Vanguards (1994). The literature has focused on several debates: Does the movement merit inclusion in Mexican literary histories? Most critics since Luis Mario Schneider agree that it does. Should the movement be discussed in the context of international avant-garde movements or was it a purely local phenomenon? Many of the exhibition catalogues try to present estridentismo as an authentically Mexican movement disconnected from other avant-gardes. And, perhaps most importantly, what legacy did this movement leave behind?