ABSTRACT

Interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco is one of North America's leading interpreters of intercultural theory and practice. This volume gathers together her finest writings since 1995 and includes critical essays by Jean Fisher and Caroline Vercoe that interpret her work.
Engaging and provocative, these essays, interviews, performance scripts and fotonovelas take readers on a tour of our current multicultural landscape. Fusco explores such issues as sex tourism in Cuba as a barometer of the island's entry into the global economy, Frantz Fanon's theorization of metropolitan blackness, and artistic and net activist responses to the effects of free trade on the Mexican populace. She interviews such postcolonial personnae as Isaac Julien, Hilton Als and Tracey Moffatt. Approaching the dynamics of cultural fusion from many angles, Fusco's satires, commentaries, and sociological inquiries collapse boundaries, and form a sustained meditation on how the forces of globalization impact upon the making of art.

part 1|81 pages

Section One Borne in Captivity

chapter |15 pages

The Bodies That Were Not Ours 1996

chapter |4 pages

Mexarcane International

Ethnic Talent for Export 1994–1995

chapter |4 pages

Better Yet When Dead

1997

chapter |11 pages

The Man and the Myth

Roger Guenveur Smith as Huey P. Newton, an interview

chapter |6 pages

Captain Shit and other Allegories of Black Stardom

The Work of Chris Ofili 1999

chapter |6 pages

Wreaking Havoc on the Signified

The Art of David Hammons

chapter |12 pages

My Kind of Conversation

The Artwork of Daniel J. Martinez 1995

chapter |17 pages

The Unbearable Weightiness of Beings

Art in Mexico after NAFTA 1

chapter |4 pages

Votos (Vows)

A Performance 1999–2000

part 2|14 pages

Section Two Other Perspectives

chapter |4 pages

Paquíta y Chata Se Arrebatan

a collaboration with Nao Bustamante

chapter |10 pages

A pilot for a Chicano soap opera

part 3|124 pages

Section Three Suspended in Transit

chapter |6 pages

Blacks in the Metropolis

Isaac Julien on Frantz Fanon, an interview

chapter |6 pages

Rights of Passage

A performance for South Africa 1997

chapter |17 pages

Stuff

Co-written with Nao Bustamante

chapter |9 pages

Bad grrl bravado

A Conversation with Tracey Moffatt

chapter |17 pages

Hustling for Dollars

jineteras in Cuba 1996

chapter |9 pages

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

And view from the bridge, four years on 1996

chapter |2 pages

El Ultimo Deseo (The Last Wish)

A performance for Cuba 1997

chapter |2 pages

El Evento Suspendido (The Postponed Event)

A performance for Cuba 2000

chapter |9 pages

Mamas, Sistahs and Auntie Men

Hilton Als and The Women, An Interview

chapter |4 pages

Sudaca Enterprises

A collaboration with Juan Pablo Ballester and Maria Elena Escalona 1997

chapter |6 pages

Modernity Deferred

The Work of Luis Molina-Pantins

chapter |16 pages

At Your Service

Latin Women in the Global Information Network

chapter |19 pages

The Incredible Disappearing Woman

A play in one act 2000

part 4|26 pages

Section Four Other Perspectives

chapter |8 pages

Witness for the Prosecution

The Writings of Coco Fusco

chapter |16 pages

Agency and Ambivalence

A Reading of Works by Coco Fusco Caroline Vercoe