Description
Book SynopsisFeaturing extensive, newly uncovered biographical information, Martín Ramírez is the definitive study of the life and critical reception of the Mexican migrant and psychiatric patient who became one of the twentieth century's finest artists.
Trade Review"Elegant in both prose and argument, Espinosa’s book untangles Ramírez’s work from the conditions within which it has been defined in order to celebrate the radical complexities of the artist’s aesthetics and the power of recognizing him as 'an example of resistance, survival, and artistic agency from the perspective of a subaltern subjectivity.'" * Publishers Weekly *
"Intellectually rigorous and deeply moving . . . As Espinosa tracks the path of Ramírez’s work out into the art world in this meticulous, corrective, and humanizing portrait of a remarkably persevering artist, he raises disquieting questions about immigration, race, mental illness, creativity, and how we categorize and value art." * Booklist, starred review *
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Introducing Martín Ramírez: A Transnational Migrant Worker from Los Altos de Jalisco
- 2. "Disoriented in Mind": Ramírez's Involuntary Seclusion
- 3. Art inside a Total Institution
- 4. A Psychotic Artist or the Mexican Henri Rousseau?
- 5. Marketing and Constructing the Reputation of an Outsider Master
- 6. The Enigma of Martín Ramírez
- Notes
- Index
