City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Second skin, Josephine Baker and the modern surface, Anne Anlin Cheng

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Second skin

electronic resource

Anne Anlin Cheng

Josephine Baker and the modern surface

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 20th century., 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 A. 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

specialized