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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture

The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture

Hardcover

Art HistoryAmerican Art - GeneralSculpture & Installation

Publisher Price: $65.00

ISBN10: 0691261490
ISBN13: 9780691261492
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: Nov 12 2024
Pages: 292
Weight: 4.25
Height: 1.30 Width: 9.80 Depth: 12.30
Language: English

A major new survey of American sculpture, exploring how it both reflects and redefines concepts of race and identity in the United States

How does American sculpture intersect with the history of race in the United States? The three-dimensional qualities of sculpture give it a distinct advantage over other art forms in capturing a subject's likeness, and our minds can swiftly conjure a body and racialize it from the most minimal of prompts. The Shape of Power examines the role of American sculpture, from the nineteenth century to today, in understanding and constructing the concept of race in the United States and how this medium has shaped the way generations have learned to visualize and think about race.

Exploring the relationship between sculpture and ideas about race in the United States, this book provides fresh perspectives on artists ranging from Hiram Powers, Edmonia Lewis, and Augusta Savage to Barbara Chase-Riboud, Titus Kaphar, Raven Halfmoon, Sanford Biggers, Betye Saar, Yolanda López, and Simone Leigh. It reveals how sculptors use this versatile medium to challenge discriminatory ideologies and entrenched social and cultural constructions of race while offering bold new visions of community, identity, and selfhood.

Featuring superb illustrations of sculptural works in a broad range of media, The Shape of Power contributes new scholarship to the understudied field of American sculpture, which hasn't been the subject of a major publication survey in more than fifty years.

Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

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