Experiments in Exile: C. L. R. James, Hélio Oiticica, and the Aesthetic Sociality of Blackness - Paperback

by Laura Harris (Author)

Comparing radical experiments undertaken by Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James and Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, Experiments in Exile charts their common desire to reconceive citizenship. Laura Harris shows how James and Oiticica gravitate toward and attempt to relay the ongoing renewal of dissident, dissonant social forms that constitute what she calls "the aesthetic sociality of blackness," in the barrack-yards of Port-of-Spain and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the assembly lines of Detroit and the streets of the New York, ultimately challenging rather than rehabilitating normative conceptions of citizens and polities as well as authors and artworks.

Author Biography

Laura Harris is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Art and Public Policy at New York University.