Subversive Language and Contemporary Women Artists of Color

Subversive Language and Contemporary Women Artists of Color presents the intersection of language and the female body in performance art, photography, film, and video since the 1970s. Historically, conceptual art’s use of text juxtaposed with image offered a unique entry point into analyzing how the mind processes visual information and recognizes the limitations of language to effectively convey meaning. Notably, its ability to potentially unhinge the mind/body divide particularly resonated with women artists of color. Accordingly, Subversive Language examines the progression of text and image intersections in the work of Middle Eastern American, Asian American, African American, and Latin American artists in order to highlight transnationalism, cross-cultural exchange, and the role of the exile and immigrant, which has yet to be analyzed in contemporary art historical or visual culture discourse. Feminist and interdisciplinary in nature, this study prioritizes text/image pairings in a variety of written and spoken languages as distinct transmissions of cultural exchange, especially for artists such as Shirin Neshat, Lorna Simpson, and Yong Soon Min.