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Book: Embodiment and Black Religion

Chapter: 3. Making Bodies with a Brush Stroke: African American Visual Art and the Re/constitution of Black Embodiment

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.27405

Blurb:

Through an analysis of Jean Michel Basquiat’s artwork, we point to the function of visual art by arguing that Basquiat’s images of bodies without organs, or deconstructed bodies, reflect an understanding of the body that is fluid, undefined, and ever-changing. Basquiat’s paintings thus “re-present” black bodies and black life beyond fixed, stereotypical depictions.

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