Description
Book SynopsisThe Migrant Image offers a sophisticated analysis of how refugee and exiled artists imagine a globalized world where borders are shifting, populations are forcibly removed from their homelands, and the gap separating the rich from the poor is growing.
Trade Review“
The Migrant Image is an important reflection on a form of art practice marked by the ‘posts’ of postmodern critique and a political commitment to oppose prepackaged discourses of crisis, austerity, and futile resistance. In a timely way, Demos shows the two are compatible. The Migrant Image will stimulate fascinating debates in the academic, artistic, and documentary spheres. In triangulating among these camps Demos brings down the barriers separating them.” -- Alex Fattal * Public Books *
“Think of T.J. Demos’s
The Migrant Image as a field guide to art for those interested in the politics of human rights, globalization, migration, and war.” -- Ryan Wong * Hyperallergic *
“T. J. Demos’s
The Migrant Image is the most comprehensive and in-depth scholarly investigation of the effects that globalization has had on contemporary artistic practice over the past three decades. The scope of Demos’s investigation is impressive, most notably in his unpacking and explication of key terms in global art discourse that have proven problematic, and at times elusive. The effects of globalization on creative and intellectual practices in the arts has been a controversial subject that has eluded easy consensus – and Demos skilfully brings a much needed legibility to a discussion that is as divisive as it is complex.” -- Derek Conrad Murray * Third Text *
“Demos’s deft criticism means that he is able to bring together a broad range of artwork and argue very persuasively in each case for its effectiveness. . . . His authorial voice rings crystal clear throughout the analysis of this range and mix of artistic practice.” -- James Day * Art History *
"Framing contemporary artworks dealing with the theme of migration within the twenty-first century context of 'crisis globalization,' Demos engages with a growing and interdisciplinary body of scholarship on neoliberalism and uneven development. The book’s main intervention, however, is within the subfield of global contemporary art history, where it will serve as a very useful text for students, researchers, critics, and curators concerned with the relationship between art and politics in the post–September 11 era." -- Tammer Salah El-Sheikh * Arab Studies Journal *
Table of ContentsIllustrations vii
Check-In: A Prelude xiii
Charting a Course: Exile, Diaspora, Nomads, Refugees: A Genealogy of Art and Migration 1
Departure A. Moving Images of Globalization 21
1. Indeterminacy and Bare Life in Steve McQueen's
Western Deep 33
2. "Sabotaging the Future": The Essay-Films of the Otolith Group 54
3. Hito Steyerl's Traveling Images 74
Transit: Politicizing Aesthetics 90
Departure B. Life Full of Holes 95
4. The Art of Emily Jacir: Dislocation and Politicization 103
5. Recognizing the Unrecognized: The Photographs of Ahlam Shibli 124
6. The Right of Opacity: On the Otolith Group's
Nervus Rerum 144
Transit: Going Offshore 160
Departure C. Zones of Conflict 169
7. Out of Beirut: Mobile Histories and the Politics of Fiction 177
8. Video's Migrant Geography: Ursula Biemann's
Sahara Chronicle 201
9. Means without End: Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri's
Camp Campaign 221
Destination: The Politics of Aesthetics during Global Crisis 245
Acknowledgments 251
Notes 255
Bibliography 305
Index 323
