The “rupture” as postmodernity: the critical thought of Octavio Paz from 1950 to 1967

Summary

This paper aims to point out some of the fundamental categories of Octavio Paz's art criticism between 1950 and 1967 such as significance, appearance and poetry, to show that the notion of "rupture", which the poet described in 1950 and his retake in the sixties make a profound questioning of Mexican modernity, suggesting a theory of postmodernity and the local neo-avantgarde. In addition to the text called Tamayo in Mexican painting (1950), reference will be made to four other essays: From criticism to the offering (1960); Presentation of Pedro Coronel (1961); The price and significance (1963); Presence and present: Baudelaire art critic (1967). From my perspective, it is in these five essays that a program and conceptualization of his criticism can be found, based on readings he makes of Kant, Heidegger and structuralism among others, whose influence is evident but never cited. Furthermore, it will be noted that Paz's art criticism is constitutive of his general thought and not just a mere contingency of his work.