Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation (Art History Publication Initiative) - Hardcover

"Jessica L. Horton's book is a carefully and lovingly collected archive of stories, images, and histories that draw one closer to the artists discussed." -- Lindsay Nixon * Art Journal * "Horton offers a model of contemporary art scholarship that is informed not only by wide-ranging critical theory but also of the historical traditions of Native American art. It adheres to the highest standards of scholarship while also engaging a constructive and hopeful intercultural dialogue." -- Ruth Phillips * European Journal of American Culture * "The book ... comes alive through the author's creative reinterpretation of the art, along with the author's cogent primary data consisting of participant observation and interviews.... A widespread interdisciplinary audience ... likely will find plenty of insights in this interesting book." -- Tim Kubal * American Indian Culture and Research Journal * "The book is well-illustrated, with color plates focusing on the main artworks discussed. The author has clearly done extensive research, in some cases communicating with the artists themselves, and compiled a very thorough bibliography. The index to the book is also thoughtful, providing nuances for broad topics. In all, this book is a worthwhile read." -- Amy Lazet * ARLIS/NA * "At last an art book that recognizes Native American art as mainstream, and takes it seriously and interprets it with the same care and scrutiny given to art created by white people.... The research behind Art for an Undivided Earth is deep and reaches not only into Native roots but also across the ocean to European influences. The plentiful color illustrations enhance the points Horton makes, and the narrative is thorough and well written.... Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- A. Wirkkala * Choice * "Horton's study is scholarship as advocacy and a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion about how to develop a truly global perspective in the study of contemporary art.... This is a scholarly book with the usual apparatus and takes into account a range of theoretical approaches but is written clearly enough to offer something to serious general readers." -- Andrea Kirsh * Artblog *

In Art for an Undivided Earth Jessica L. Horton reveals how the spatial philosophies underlying the American Indian Movement (AIM) were refigured by a generation of artists searching for new places to stand. Upending the assumption that Jimmie Durham, James Luna, Kay WalkingStick, Robert Houle, and others were primarily concerned with identity politics, she joins them in remapping the coordinates of a widely shared yet deeply contested modernity that is defined in great part by the colonization of the Americas. She follows their installations, performances, and paintings across the ocean and back in time, as they retrace the paths of Native diplomats, scholars, performers, and objects in Europe after 1492. Along the way, Horton intervenes in a range of theories about global modernisms, Native American sovereignty, racial difference, archival logic, artistic itinerancy, and new materialisms. Writing in creative dialogue with contemporary artists, she builds a picture of a spatially, temporally, and materially interconnected world-an undivided earth.