Through the figure of Josephine Baker, Second Skin tells the story of an unexpected yet enduring intimacy between the invention of a modernist style and the theatricalization of black skin at the turn of the twentieth century. Stepping outside of the platitudes surrounding this iconic figure, Anne Anlin Cheng argues that Baker's famous nakedness must be understood within larger philosophic and aesthetic debates about, and desire for, 'pure surface' that
crystallized at the convergence of modern art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Through Cheng's analysis, Baker emerges as a central artist whose work engages with and impacts various modes of modernist display such as film, photography, art, and even the modern house.
- ISBN10 0195387058
- ISBN13 9780195387056
- Publish Date 7 April 2011 (first published 27 December 2010)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 20 April 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English