The contemporary and post-modern artists of today are calling attention to themselves as they appropriate the experience of “difference and otherness” in order to provide themselves with oppositional historical meaning, legitimacy and immediacy. They have expanded their dialogues to include meaningful connection between their authentic experiences and critical thinking about aesthetics and culture to offer new insight, in addition, to challenging theoretical hegemony.
During the Seventies, many artists were influenced by modern perspectives addressing issues of identity. Today the dialogue incorporates the voices of the displaced, marginalized, exploited and oppressed communities. Through the work of artists such as Dinh Le, Betye and Alison Saar, Hung Li, Jaune Quick-to See Smith, and Maria Gutierrez , we are seeing work that creates longing for insight and strategies for change that can renew spirits and reconstruct grounds for their collective experiences.
Each artist in his or her own way has addressed and responded to continued displacement, loss of a sense of grounding and profound alienation. They have restored cultural difference to the minds of mainstream America and created immanence which resonates in luminosity, texture, color and light. They also offer the viewer an aesthetic whose narrative at the same time challenges out dated views and compel a rethinking of how we define society’s others.
