Even though art revues make constant references to Germán Cueto’s work, the sculptures he created were never recorded with the care that they deserve. Thus, many of his sculptures are often cited as estridentista works, even though they do not belong to the movement.
Estridentismo was an early Mexican avant-garde movement that originated in 1921, parallel to the muralist movement. Its creator and, for some time only member was Manuel Maples Arce (1898-1981), a poet from Veracruz rebelling against modernist poets and academic painting. Related to Dadaism, Futurism, Ultraism, and Creationism—in both its European and Latin American manifestations—Estridentismo was a movement that centered on agitprop strategies, and unrestricted adherence to a mechanic aesthetics. The followers of the movement encouraged a new urban sensory perception, in which experiences accumulate in simultaneity, at the rhythm and speed of modern life. The very name of the movement refers to urban noise, as well as to their wish to be heard because of its embedded transgressions and excesses.As a movement of artists devoted to literature, music, painting, prints, photography, and sculpture, estridentismo‘s center of operations was El Café de Nadie in Mexico City. Later on, it relocated to the city of Xalapa (Veracruz) where its members got involved in an educational revolution. It relied on several information disseminating sources such as the magazines: Ser, Irradiador, and Horizonte.