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Gonzalez PDF

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Isabel Sepúlveda Ceinos
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67 views1 page

Gonzalez PDF

Uploaded by

Isabel Sepúlveda Ceinos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art / Jennifer A. González.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, June 2008.—300 p.: ill.— ISBN: 978-0-262-07286-1 (cl., alk.
paper): $29.95.

All too often, installation as art-making practice is viewed and described


by the visual components that comprise it—video, sound, sculptural elements
and still photography, among many others. In her work Subject to Display,
Jennifer González takes a different approach by choosing to reframe the works
of five artists—James Luna, Fred Wilson, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Pepón Osorio and
Renée Green—around the subject of race. By focusing on men and women
artists who represent different American racial types, including Native
American, African-American, and Latino, González can more broadly explore
the ways in which race, in general, colors the creation, presentation, and
experience of contemporary art.
In the book’s introduction, Gonzáles, an associate professor in the
history of art and visual culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz,
offers an explanation of the discourse of race as subject, discussing and
reacting to the theories of such writers as Annie E. Coombes, Hal Foster, and
Homi Babba. While she is reliant on theory to build her arguments, this work is
not overwhelmed by it.
Each chapter in this study is devoted to the work of one of the five
artists. Gonzalez discusses and explores finished works, but also the intentionality of each artist, who has
both presented and emerged from a racial context. In all the featured works, race is depicted through the
use of cultural objects from the artist’s background; These objects that created and fostered racial
stereotypes are, in the context of the contemporary installation, commenting on racial issues. In this
way, race is continually deconstructed and constructed. Repeatedly, Rodriguez confronts us with these
conflicting narratives, positioning race somewhere between them. González’s scholarship is rigorous,
almost scientific in its ability to connect theory to art practice.
I recommend purchase of this publication for any academic library that supports a curriculum on
American and/or contemporary art. It augments the growing body of work on installation art, as well as
race in art, and thoroughly documents specific works by these challenging artists.

Sarah E. Falls, User Services Specialist, ARTstor. [email protected]

Copyright © 2008 ARLIS/NA

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