Cristóbal JACOME-MORENO

Cristobal Jacome Moreno’s seminar took place on Monday 30 May 2022: Diego Rivera Builds a House for His Idols, 1940-1964.

" This presentation focuses on the efforts painter Diego Rivera made for constructing his own museum of ancient Mexican art and how it attempted to integrate the national topography with an anti-functional architecture that invoked ancient constructions. I seek to problematize the following questions: How pre-Hispanic-inspired buildings, and its attendant materiality, aspired to apprehend the foundational context of Mexican culture? Which were the operating margins for artists and architects to intervene into the official display of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic art? "

His suggestions for the week:

Film : Eisenstein in Mexico - Footage of an unfinished film project, 1931.

Reading : The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930: Cityscapes, Photographs, Debates edited by Idurre Alonso and Maristella Casciato. Publisher Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, 2020. 

This exhibition catalogue is the first publictaion that analyzes the growth of Latin American capital cities from the perspective of visual arts. It specially looks at photographic images as interpretative devices of meanings to best analyze crucial moments of the urban transformation of Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Santiago, Lima, and Mexico City. Situating the image of Latin American metroplises at the core of its examination, this polyvocal catalogue proposes a close reading of certain photographic series and artistic expressions to shed light on the cultural complexities derived from ambitious modernization projects.

Image :

By the early 1940s, Mexico City entered an era of unprecedented urban expansion. During this period, known as the “Mexican miracle,” both the state and private investors funded massive modernist constructions such as housing developments, elite suburbs, a university campus, office buildings, markets, and hospitals with the goal of building a modern society. As the city turned radically to a new scale, architects, artists, and developers appropriated new territories for their modernist designs. Cristóbal Jácome-Moreno’s project focuses on the architectural urban projects built between 1940 and 1952 in El Pedregal, an enormous volcanic region resulting from Xitle Volcano’s eruption (AD 245-315) located in what is now southern Mexico City. Namely, these projects are Diego Rivera’s Archeological Museum “Anahuacalli” (1940-1957), and the mammoth University City that gave the National University a new home (1949-1952). Mexico City’s mid-century boom was significantly marked by these monumental modern structures built in a uniquely dramatic landscape. For his analysis, Cristóbal proposes to start anew from the material, ancient rocks, to advance the thesis that this archaic material was pivotal for re-elaborating the notion of a national space as well as for examining the distinctive character of El Pedregal’s works.

Cristóbal Jácome-Moreno is an art historian and curator specialized in the art and architecture of the Americas from a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective. In 2019, he received his PhD in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin. Cristobal’s primary research areas of interest are Latin American urban cultures, and questions of nation building, modernizing processes, and politics of patrimony. He is currently working on a book manuscript that examines the presence of pre-Columbian aesthetics in mid-century Mexican architecture. Other research projects focus on architectural photography, monuments and memory, and the aesthetics of photomontage.

EDITED BOOKS
Cristóbal Andrés Jácome Moreno (ed.), Ida Rodríguez Prampolini: La crítica de arte en el siglo XX. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2016.

Cristóbal Andrés Jácome Moreno and Nina Crangle (eds.), Ida Rodríguez Prampolini (comp.), Muralismo Mexicano 1920-1940: Crónicas; Volume 1: 1920-1930; Volume 2: 1930-1940. Mexico City: Universidad Veracruzana, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2012.

Cristóbal Andrés Jácome Moreno and Louise Noelle Gras (eds.), Frente al Fascismo: El poder de la imagen ante el totalitarismo. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Academia de Artes, Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, 2012.

CHAPTERS IN ANTHOLOGIES AND BOOKS
- “La crítica de arte en los años sesenta,” Homenaje a Ida Rodríguez Prampolini (1925-2017). Mexico City: Academia de Artes, 2018.
- “Presentación,” “La experiencia de los setenta,” Ida Rodríguez Prampolini: La crítica de arte en el siglo XX. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2016.
- “Mathias Goeritz en Guadalajara,” Homenaje a Mathias Goeritz 1915-2015. Mexico City: Academia de Artes, 2015.
- “Los itinerarios citadinos de Héctor García,” Homenaje a Héctor García 1923-2012. Mexico City: Academia de Artes, 2015.

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
- “Cohesión y Persuasión: El VIII Congreso Panamericano de Arquitectos en México como Plataforma Política,” Latin American and LatinX Visual Culture, University of California Los Angeles, No. 4, (Spring 2020): 101-114.
- “Palimpsestos constructivos: La impronta del pasado prehispánico en la modernización mexicana.” Caiana: Revista de Historia del Arte y Cultura Visual del Centro Argentino de Investigadores en Arte, Centro de Inverstigadores en Arte, No. 4, (First Semester 2014): 1-14.
- “Fábrica de imágenes arquitectónicas: El caso de México en 1968.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, No. 96, (Spring 2010): 77-107.
- “Ante la Historia del Arte: Las preguntas de Ida Rodríguez Prampolini.” Contrapunto, no. 13, (January- April, 2010): 81-90.
- “Composiciones visuales: Mathias Goeritz en Guadalajara.” Estudios Jalisciences, El Colegio de Jalisco, No. 81, (August 2010): 75-95.
- “El ojo, la lente y la esfera: Un autorretrato de Armando Salas Portugal.” Bitácora. Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, No. 20, (February-August 2010): 6-11.
- “Las construcciones de la imagen: La serie del Conjunto Urbano Nonoalco-Tlatelolco de Armando Salas Portugal,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, No. 95, (Fall 2009): 85-118.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE PUBLICATIONS
- “The Resurgence of the Ancient Past: Mexico City in the Age of Modern Technologies,” in Maristella Casciato and Idurre Alonso eds. The Metropolis in Latin America 1830-1930. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute (forthcoming).
- “Pablo López Luz: Revisitando los Terrenos de las Civilizaciones ‘Arcaicas’.” Pablo López Luz: Piedra Volcánica. Mexico City: Toluca Editions, 2019.
- “Kati Horna, Mathias Goeritz, and the Architectural Photography,” Told and Untold: Kati Horna and the Illustrated Press. New York: Americas Society, 2016.
- “Gerzso y el Glamour Maya,” Gerzso, Gerzso, Gerzso. Mexico City: Centro Cultural Tlatelolco,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2015.
- “Modernizations,” “Journeys and Assemblages,” “Constructing Order,” “Architecture and Publicity,” “Gardens of El Pedregal de San Ángel,” “Arquitectura/México,” in Rita Eder ed. Desafío a la Estabilidad: Procesos artísticos en México 1952-1967. Mexico City: Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Turner, 2014. “Introduction,”
Exhibition guide Desafío a la Estabilidad: Procesos artísticos en México 1952-1967. Co-author: Rita Eder.
- “Rescatar saberes de la historia: la obra de Gabriel de la Mora,” Proyectos 2012. NC-Arte: Bogotá, Colombia, Fall 2013.
- “Las horas artificiales: Vanguardia de la luz eléctrica,” in Renato González and Anthony Stanton eds. Vanguardia en México 1915-1940. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Museo Nacional de Arte, 2013.
- “Diálogos con la arquitectura,” “Arquitectura para armar,” James Oles ed. Lola Álvarez Bravo y la fotografía de una época. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, Editorial RM, 2012.
- “El poder de la imagen ante el totalitarismo,” in Louise Noelle Gras and Cristóbal Jácome-Moreno eds. Frente al Fascismo: El poder de la imagen ante el totalitarismo. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Academia de Artes, Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, 2012.
- “Rescate e invención del espacio museístico: posibilidades y contextos de la arquitectura moderna,” in Ana Garduño ed. Cimientos: 65 años del INBA: legados, donaciones y adquisiciones. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Instituto de Bellas Artes, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, 2011.

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS
- “Mexico Modern: Art, Commerce, and Cultural Exchange,” Caa.reviews, May 2018.
- “Arte Mexicano en la Era Trump: A series of interviews with James Oles, Idurre Alonso, Jesse Lerner, Thomas Mellins, and Donald Albrecht,” Letras Libres, September 2017.
- “Mexico Theme Issue: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts,” Anales del Instituto de
Investigaciones Estéticas, Vol. XXXIV, no. 100, 2012.
- “’La domesticidad en guerra’ by Beatriz Colomina,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Vol. XXXI, no. 95, Summer 2009.
- “’Las casas del Pedregal (1947-1968)’ by Alfonso Pérez-Méndez y Alejandro Aptilon,” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Vol. XXX, no. 92, 2008.