EBOOK Second Skin:Josephine Baker & the Modern Surface

What does a black burlesque star have to do with some of the most enduring and        passionate ideas in modern aesthetic theory? The spectacular Josephine Baker emerges        in this fascinating untold story as a principal figure in the drama behind the        making of Euro-American Modernism. Instead of seeing her nude performances as a        Primitivist given, Cheng argues that Baker's famous skin was central to the debates        about and desire for "e;pure surface"e; that crystallized at the convergence of modern        art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Taking the reader across the Atlantic        - through real stages and imagined houses; banana plantations and ocean liners;        metallic bodies and radiant cities - this study tracks the ardent and protean        conversation between the making of a Modernist style and the staging of a new black        visuality. In this account, Baker and the Modernists known to have adored and        objectified her in fact shared a common dream: the fantasy of remaking and wearing        the skin of the other.