Böcker av Rebecca McGrew

Creating a discourse between Eastern "otherness" and Western concepts of beautyLos Angeles-based artist Hayv Kahraman (born 1981) creates exquisite paintings and other wall works that address diasporic cultural memory, feminine collectivity and gender identity through her personal history as an Iraqi émigré first to Europe, then to the US. This artist's book explores how her visual language merges her biography as an immigrant in a multiplicity of styles--including Persian miniatures, Japanese illustrations and Italian Renaissance paintings--creating a discourse between Eastern "otherness" and Western concepts of beauty. The key figure in the paintings represents Kahraman as a colonized woman; the repetitive nature of her work and the act of shredding and mending presents a history of displacement, loss and trauma. The book includes never-before-published images of the artist's work and her performance texts, plus new essays and poetry.

Jose Clemente Orozco's 1930 mural, Prometheus, created for the Pomona College campus, is a dramatic and gripping examination of heroism. This thoughtful exhibition catalogue examines the multiple ways Orozco's vision resonates with four artists working in Mexico today: Isa Carrillo, Adela Goldbard, Rita Ponce de Leo n, and Naomi Rinco n-Gallardo.