Experiments in Exile: C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness (Commonalities)

by Laura Harris (Author), Laura Harris (Author)

New
Paperback
2018
$37.58

Comparing radical experiments undertaken by Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James and Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica, Experiments in Exile charts their common desire to reconceive citizenship. Laura Harris shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and attempt to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms that constitute what she calls the aesthetic sociality of blackness, in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York, ultimately challenging rather than rehabilitating normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks.

Synopsis

Comparing radical experiments undertaken by Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James and Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica, Experiments in Exile charts their common desire to reconceive citizenship. Laura Harris shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and attempt to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms that constitute what she calls the aesthetic sociality of blackness, in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York, ultimately challenging rather than rehabilitating normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks.

$37.58

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Edition: 1
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 07 Aug 2018
ISBN 10: 0823279790
ISBN 13: 9780823279791

Media Reviews

The first response of many readers may be to wonder what on earth links C.L.R. James and H lio Oiticica This book's critical themes of the motley crew, of theorizing issues of contact, of
aesthetic sociality all answer the question well. What is crucial is that two such disparate characters, both contending with issues of exile, illegality and citizenship, each developed similar strategies for understanding culture and for projecting a future (even futuristic in Oiticica's case) potential.

--Aldon Lynn Nielsen The Pennsylvania State University

Author Bio

Laura Harris is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Art and Public Policy at New York University.