After World War II; the concept of borders became unsettled; especially after the rise of subaltern and multicultural studies in the 1980s. Art at the U.S.-Mexico border came to a turning point at the beginning of that decade with the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Beginning with a political history of the border; with an emphasis on the Chicano movement and its art production; Ila Sheren explores the forces behind the shift in thinking about the border in the late twentieth century. Particularly in the world of visual art; borders have come to represent a space of performance rather than a geographical boundary; a cultural terrain meant to be negotiated rather than a physical line. From 1980 forward; Sheren argues; the border became portable through performance and conceptual work. This dematerialization of the physical border after the 1980s worked in two opposite directionsmdash;the movement of border thinking to the rest of the world; as well as the importation of ideas to the border itself. Beginning with site-specific conceptual artwork of the 1980s; particularly the performances of the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo; Sheren shows how these works reconfigured the border as an active site. Sheren moves on to examine artists such as Guillermo Goacute;mez-Pentilde;a; Coco Fusco; and Marcos Ramirez "ERRE." Although Sheren places emphasis on the Chicano movement and its art production; this groundbreaking book suggests possibilities for the expansion of the concept of portability to contemporary art projects beyond the region.
#1474579 in eBooks 2012-11-08 2012-11-08File Name: B009YLIR9M
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