Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art in Los Angeles: transnational exhibition, diasporic emplacement, and the expedient politics of display

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I trace the Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art exhibition from its inception in a privatized programme managed by the transnational bank Banamex through its multiple instantiations within U.S. museums in order to explore the transnational politics of the exhibition, as well as its role in the diasporic emplacement of Mexican Americans. In so doing, I unsettle the ways we understand the commodification of difference through museum display and argue for the re-conceptualization of the museum as a transnational space in which varied multicultural imaginaries can be engaged and mobilized.