Only Skin Deep: Changing (Museum Edition) Visions of the American Self

by Brian Wallis and Coco Fusco

Book Overview

Few issues are as controversial as race and nation, reveating that after years of debate we still understand very little about how these terms of self-definition and identity work. Perhaps their meaning finds its most powerful expression in the medium of photography. Photographs have been used to present America as a haven for immigrants and a paradise of pioneers and entrepreneurs; yet photographs have also shown us a society fraught by racial conflict...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810991659
• ISBN13: 9780810991651
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 3.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

GRAND VISION/HARD VIEWING

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.