For a resignification of national art: the tensions between the politics of Palacio Buenavista and the art of Leonora Carrington (1964-1976)

• Grant number: 24/08772-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of America
• Principal Investigator: José Alves de Freitas Neto
• Grantee: Dara Monteiro Ramos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was an English artist who immigrated to Mexico in 1943, experiencing daily interactions, artistic exchanges, political activities, and connections with the country. Despite this, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL) and the Academia de Artes - institutions of Palacio Buenavista - established nationalist principles around art that neglected artists like Leonora Carrington, denying the presence of Mexican cultural identities in them and their place in the national artistic repertoire. In this regard, the main objective of the present project is to identify the tensions between the policies of Palacio Buenavista and the art of Leonora Carrington, analyzing how much the life and work of the artist reveal the exclusive nationalist discourses of the Palacio and challenge its conception of national art. The research focuses on the years between 1964 and 1976, from the beginning of the cultural policies of Díaz Ordaz to the beginning of the fragmentation between Palacio and the government of Luis Echeverría (1970-1976). Finally, the sources will be analyzed based on the theoretical references of intellectual history that engage with both political history and cultural history.