Mrs. Rockefeller’s Exquisite Corpse

The “exquisite corpse” in this title refers to a gift book presented to Mrs. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller in December 1931, which contains signed notes from Rockefeller’s domestic employees, friends, ministers, art dealers, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) employees, and also a signed painting by Diego Rivera. The book’s construction highlights the intersecting social networks and associations among a variety of religious, artistic, philanthropic, and domestic organizations and individuals that are more typically investigated as distinct or non-connecting. As such, the book invites an alternate reading of influences shaping MoMA’s earliest years. This interpretation takes inspiration from the surrealist games and conceits of ethnographic and artistic surrealism—an approach that is generatively suggested by the Tribute Book’s construction. Read in this way, I take the gift book to open up a range of associations that make possible modes of interpretation through which to consider the secular and the modern religious. I use the book’s intertextual qualities as an entry point into a new consideration of the presence and effects of liberal-protestant spiritual aesthetics in MOMA’s earliest years. I argue that such spiritual aesthetics shaped the secular museum’s curation, display, and interpretation of political artists including Rivera and European surrealists.

Análise multimodal da organização temática de roteiros de audiodescrição de obras de arte bidimensionais: um estudo de caso em perspectiva sistêmico-funcional

A audiodescrição (AD) é uma modalidade de tradução audiovisual que visa atender a necessidade sensorial de pessoas com deficiência visual, possibilitando-lhes obter pela palavra a informação visual que é obtida pelo sentido da visão. Quanto às pesquisas nacionais sobre AD, XXXX (2014) desenvolveu um modelo de análise – denominado Modelo Semiótico Sistêmico-funcional de XXXX (MSSFA) – para auxiliar na formação de profissionais da área, os audiodescritores. O MSSFA resulta da interface entre o modelo semiótico sistêmico-funcional de O’toole (1990, 1994, 1995, 2011), os estudos sobre AD de De Coster e Mühleis (2007), de Holland (2009) e de Magalhães e Araújo (2012). A aplicação do MSSFA na formação de audiodescritores demonstrou que este não dá conta das questões linguísticas da AD, dado que busca apenas oferecer parâmetros de letramento visual. O presente artigo identifica uma carência de trabalhos que observem a construção da textura da AD de obras de arte e, nesse sentido, objetiva contribuir com a produção textual que decorre da leitura e interpretação da imagem. Trata-se de um estudo de caso que parte de uma obra de arte (Frida y Diego Rivera, pintado por Frida Kahlo em 1931) e dois roteiros de AD descrevendo a referida pintura (um roteiro produzido por um audiodescritor iniciante e sua versão corrigida por um audiodescritor experiente). A obra de arte é analisada a partir do MSSFA, ao passo que os dois roteiros de AD são analisados a partir do Recurso de Periodicidade (MARTIN, 1992, MARTIN; ROSE, 2007) da Linguística Sistêmico-funcional (HALLIDAY; MATTHIESSEN, 2014).

“Beloved monster”

This psychobiography study looks into one aspect of Frida Kahlo’s life, her relationship with Diego Rivera. It attempts to solve the puzzle of how Frida managed to reconcile her dedication to Diego, whose behavior was hurtful, with her rebellious character and ideology. Adopting a narrative/dialogical theoretical lens and employing the narrative inquiry method of languages of the unsayable that analyses narrative form, we examined her essay Portrait of Diego. We triangulated findings with letters, diary and paintings. We found that Frida used languages of the unsayable as narrative strategies to manage inner conflict and reconcile dedication with character and ideology. She kept voices of anger and resentment from gaining strength, and downplayed their emotional impact in favor of voices of devotion and despair. The findings point to the importance of looking into both the form and content of autobiographical narratives. Limitations and clinical implications of the study are discussed.

Dancing a Sandunga in English

Carlos Chávez was determined to make a name for himself through his dance compositions, trading on the Indian conception of Mexico that permeated potential audiences beyond its borders. He parlayed the international attention his music received into a series of highly influential posts within Mexico’s cultural bureaucracy which gave him, at first, indirect influence and, eventually, full creative control over its state-sponsored theatrical dance. Failing in his efforts to see his ballets produced in his homeland or by the Ballets Russes, he traveled to the U.S., where he finally saw his third ballet, H.P., staged with designs by Diego Rivera. One Mexican critic who had traveled to the U.S for the ballet’s only performance complained about the anglicization of the work’s Mexican dance sources. Nonetheless, it demonstrated that the idea of a Mexican ballet was a viable one.