Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art (The MIT Press) - Softcover

"Subject to Display provides a historical record of a crucial body of visualart work and a theory of how this work effectively interrogates theformation of race in US culture. It also critiques the very terms throughwhich 'identity' has been debated and often reified in both visual artpractices and museum cultures. Subject to Display is an intelligent andcrucial contribution to the understanding of racial discourse and visualityin late twentieth- and twenty-first century American culture."--Amelia Jones, Pilkington Chair, Art History & Visual Studies, School ofArts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester -- Amelia Jones "The intense moment of theorization of identity concepts developed in thenineties has apparently been brushed aside. Gonzalez provides a rivetingresponse to the identity debate, making the case that it is time to refocuson its central questions. Subject to Display shows how certain artworks arecapable of dismantling identity's monolithic qualities by interrogating theconditions under which identity has been created and sustained."--Alexander Alberro, author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity -- Alex Alberro " Subject to Display provides a historical record of a crucial body of visual art work and a theory of how this work effectively interrogates the formation of race in US culture. It also critiques the very terms through which "identity" has been debated and often reified in both visual art practices and museum cultures. Subject to Display is an intelligent and crucial contribution to the understanding of racial discourse and visuality in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American culture." Amelia Jones , Pilkington Chair, Art History & Visual Studies, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, author of Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada "The intense moment of theorization of identity concepts developed in the nineties has apparently been brushed aside. Gonzalez provides a riveting response to the identity debate, making the case that it is time to refocus on its central questions. Subject to Display shows how certain artworks are capable of dismantling identity's monolithic qualities by interrogating the conditions under which identity has been created and sustained." Alexander Alberro , author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity "The intense moment of theorization of identity concepts within the realm of art practice has been brushed aside. Gonzalez provides a riveting and compelling outline of the identity debate, and makes the case that it is time to refocus on its central questions. But rather than the unproblematic return to identity theories, the author convincingly shows that too often the artwork that is conveniently subsumed and dismissed by this classification actually aims to dismantle its monolithic qualities by interrogating the conditions under which it has been created and sustained." Alexander Alberro , author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity "What better way to understand the agency of display than through a close reading of works that do what they are about. With brilliance and grace, Gonzalez reveals the performative force of installations that restage in order to subvert the visual, material, and institutional practices that sustain race discourse." Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett , author of Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage

An exploration of the visual culture of "race" through the work of five contemporary artists who came to prominence during the 1990s. Over the past two decades, artists James Luna, Fred Wilson, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Pepon Osorio, and Renee Green have had a profound impact on the meaning and practice of installation art in the United States. In Subject to Display, Jennifer Gonzalez offers the first sustained analysis of their contribution, linking the history and legacy of race discourse to innovations in contemporary art. Race, writes Gonzalez, is a social discourse that has a visual history. The collection and display of bodies, images, and artifacts in museums and elsewhere is a primary means by which a nation tells the story of its past and locates the cultures of its citizens in the present. All five of the American installation artists Gonzalez considers have explored the practice of putting human subjects and their cultures on display by staging elaborate dioramas or site-specific interventions in galleries and museums; in doing so, they have created powerful social commentary of the politics of space and the power of display in settings that mimic the very spaces they critique. These artists' installations have not only contributed to the transformation of contemporary art and museum culture, but also linked Latino, African American, and Native American subjects to the broader spectrum of historical colonialism, race dominance, and visual culture. From Luna's museum installation of his own body and belongings as "artifacts" and Wilson's provocative juxtapositions of museum objects to Mesa-Bains's allegorical home altars, Osorio's condensed spaces (bedrooms, living rooms; barbershops, prison cells) and Green's genealogies of cultural contact, the theoretical and critical endeavors of these artists demonstrate how race discourse is grounded in a visual technology of display.