Table of Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1. "The Politics of My Position": Adrian Piper and Mythic Being 27
2. The Other "Other": Eleanor Antin and the Performance of Blackness 79
3. "Other-Oriented" Performance: Anna Deavere Smith and Twilight: Los Angeles 135
4. Nikki S. Lee's Projects and the Repackaging of the Politics of Identity 189
Conclusion 233
Notes 243
Bibliography 277
Index 293

Promotional Information

Analyzes the complex engagements with issues of identity through close readings of a significant performance, or series of performances, by four contemporary women artists

About the Author

Cherise Smith is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Texas, Austin.

Reviews

"I welcome Smith's willingness to grapple with the ambivalent feelings these artworks provoke." Helena Rickitt, Goldsmiths, University of London writing for the Times Higher Education "In this provocative work, Cherise Smith provides both an important primer on performance, and an exploration of the U.S. Obsession with race and its formations. Through impressive studies of four artists, Adrian Piper, Eleanor Antin, Anna Deavere Smith and Nikki S. Lee, Smith examines the remarkable reach of the embodied idea and the use of strategies from conceptual art to traditional theatre, and tactics from cross-dressing to minstrelsy. Smith's voice is a welcome addition to writing on contemporary art, and will redefine how we understand performance's ability to both display and address differentials of power." Kellie Jones, Columbia University "Cherise Smith writes eloquently against the notion of post-identity politics, using her understanding of the persistent 'politics of identity' to trace the boundary-crossing practices of these four important artists. Smith discusses spectators' identification strategies, but keeps an astute critical eye on the material corporeal circumstances of living within identity at this particular historical moment. From minstrelsy to passing, drag to embodiment, Smith parses theoretical tropes to study performance as a laboratory for experiments with human identity. Using personal memory and theory alongside political insights, the book treads a useful range of examples, from popular culture, to film, to art historical performance, to performance in everyday life. Enacting Others is a readable, well-argued, illuminating book that makes a vital contribution to gender and critical race studies." Jill Dolan, Princeton University