Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self [Hardcover]

Coco Fusco (Editor), Brian Wallis (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0810946351 | ISBN-13: 978-0810946354 | Publication Date: December 1, 2003

Artists featured include those who specifically address issues of race in their work as well as those who may not have intended to address racial issues but whose work nonetheless raises them. They include: Jessica Craig-Martin, Chester Higgins, Nikki Lee, Catherine Opie, Lorna Simpson, Vanessa Beecroft, Simon Johan, Carrie Mae Weems, Nancy Burson, Garry Winogrand, Pedro Meyer, Robert Misrach, Lewis Hine, Lee Friedlander, John Baldessari, Ansel Adams, Man Ray, F. Holland Day and Thomas Eakins.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From its very beginnings, photography has been inextricably linked with racial typography, pornography, commodification and exploitation. This deeply questioning collection of 300 color photos and illustrations, along with essays, accompanies a national touring exhibition curated by the International Center of Photography's Wallis and artist Fusco (The Bodies that Were Not Ours). The collection exhumes and re-examines the "dark" underbelly of American race relations as related by historical photographs, and along the way makes valuable re-discoveries, including that the "Migrant Mother" in Dorothea Lange's celebrated Depression-era photograph, Florence Thompson, was of Cherokee descent. Aleta M. Ringlero relates how one response to her research on "Prairie Pinups," erotic photographs of American Indian women, was "we like to forget those kinds of photographs are in our collection." Demonstrating the book's intent to raise questions, not bury them, the contributors are allowed to disagree with each other: Kobena Mercer ultimately finds that Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs of black men "can be seen as a subversive deconstruction of the hidden racial and gendered axioms of the nude," while Lauri Firstenberg finds them "a contemporary example of photography's categorization and classification of subjects by stereotype." Despite their number, however, the images are underplayed-sparsely scattered through texts and printed small, they are left largely unexplained (in fact, the footnotes, placed directly underneath the photographs, are easily mistaken for captions) and photographs cited in the texts often seem not included. It will be a disappointment to many readers that the actual photographic evidence, difficult as it is to look at, is not an equal partner in this much-needed examination of the painful histories behind American identity.
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About the Author

Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and Director of Graduate Study for the Visual Arts Division at Columbia University's School of the Arts. Fusco has curated exhibitions and public programs for London's ICA, The Brooklyn Museum, and several other venues. Brian Wallis is Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator at the International Center of Photography. In addition to authoring many books on contemporary art, he has contributed to numerous publications, including Artforum, Art in America, Aperture, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Village Voice. He has taught at Yale University, Williams College, New York University, and the City University of New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810946351
• ISBN-13: 978-0810946354
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GRAND VISION/HARD VIEWING, February 28, 2004

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This review is from: Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (Hardcover)

An enormous and fasinating series of discussions surrounding "raced looking" in America's history of photography is central to this group of essays by many of the cultural critics working today. A massive tome with outstanding visuals, some not seen in the exhibition, provide extensive background and analysis to the area of how race has intervened in American culture today. For museums who felt the race subject had been addressed in the 90s post-Quincentennary exhibition, it is obvious that much more in depth examination is necessary and relevant. An outstanding effort for a museum catalogue and exhibition. All should be commended. Required reading for anyone working and teaching in cultural studies, ethnic studies, humanities, and the arts.