Description
In this first book to consider Dodge and her visitors from a New Mexican perspective, Flannery Burke shows how these cultural mavens drew on modernist concepts of primitivism to construct their personal visions and cultural agendas. In each chapter she presents a place as it took shape for a different individual within Dodge's orbit. From this kaleidoscope of places emerges a vision of what place meant to modernist artists-as well as a narrative of what happened in the real place of New Mexico when visitors decided it was where they belonged. Expanding the picture of early American modernism beyond New York's dominance, she shows that these newcomers believed Taos was the place they had set out to find-and that when Taos failed to meet their expectations, they changed Taos.
Throughout, Burke examines the ways notions of primitivism unfolded as Dodge's salon attracted artists of varying ethnicities and the ways that patronage was perceived-by African American writers seeking publication, Anglos seeking ""authentic"" material, Native American artists seeking patronage, or Nuevomexicanos simply seeking respect. She considers the notion of ""competitive primitivism,"" especially regarding Carl Van Vechten, and offers nuanced analyses of divisions within northern New Mexico's arts communities over land issues and of the ways in which Pueblo Indians spoke on their own behalf.
Burke's book offers a portrait of a place as it took shape both aesthetically in the imaginations of Dodge's visitors and materially in the lives of everyday New Mexicans. It clearly shows that no people or places stand outside the modern world-and that when we pretend otherwise, those people and places inevitably suffer.
About the Author
Flannery Burke is associate professor of history at St. Louis University.
Book Information
ISBN 9780700622368
Author Flannery Burke
Format Paperback
Page Count 260
Imprint University Press of Kansas
Publisher University Press of Kansas
Weight(grams) 378g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 15mm