Pepn Osorio

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Pepon Osorio is an internationally recognized artist whose richly detailed installations challenge the stereotypes and misconceptions that shape our view of social institutions and human relationships. Osorio's colorful, often riotous installations are constructed from found objects and things that he customizes or creates. With a wry sense

Reviews

Narratively powerful (aligned with a history of visual arts storytellers like Adrian Piper and Edward Kienholz), visually compelling, and ethically just, Pepn Osorio stands as a transitional figure bridging museum installation and field-based social practices. He is, in fact, one of the first American figures in this field to focus a deeply implicated, and sympathetic, eye on the lives of the so-called othersthe immigrants, the violated, and the working classin ways that are comprehensible to people from all walks of life. I admire his work intensely, and I can think of no one better equipped to tell his story than Jennifer Gonzlez.Suzanne Lacy, Chair, MFA Public Practice at Otis College of Art and Design

In Pepn Osorio author Jennifer Gonzlez seamlessly weaves together the artists biography with his interventions in the fields of performance, installation, and public art. More than a monograph on a leading artist, this book reveals a sustained, collaborative practice that joins art and politics, museum and casita. Here Osorios work excavates and destabilizes the sedimented layers of New York City as a global art center: its Caribbean communities become central, Latino cultures cut in and out of African American traditions, the South Bronx repurposes Hollywoods melodramas, and the barbershop substitutes for the university as the place to debate sexuality and gender roles.Esther Gabara, author of Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil

Pepn Osorio provides an in-depth study of one of the leading installation artists working in the United States. Based in meaningful community collaboration, Osorio's installations employ ubiquitous material culture to explore how communities and individuals negotiate the legacy of colonialism and continued marginalization. The conceptual depth of his work finds its match in Jennifer Gonzlez, who teases out the many layers of Osorios practice from his earliest stage-prop sculptures. Thoughtful and revealing, Pepn Osorio is a must read for scholars interested Latino, Puerto Rican, and installation art.E. Carmen Ramos, Curator for Latino Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Author Bio

Jennifer A. Gonzlez teaches in the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York. She has written for numerous periodicals including Aztln, Frieze, Bomb, Camera Obscura, and Art Journal. Her book Subject to Display: Reframing Race in Contemporary Installation Art was a finalist for the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award.