The paintings and works on paper of artist Iona Rozeal Brown have captured my attention for quite some time. Brown remixes "pictures of the floating world" or Japanese woodblock prints (ukiyo-e), with contemporary exaggerated portraits of Japanese B-girl style, a sartorial gesture that many would deem an appropriation of mediated blackness. Though Brown's work might evidence the complications of cultural globalization and the performativity of identity, she is not the only artist consuming/producing new representations of the global visual world. I am thinking here of Nikki S. Lee's cross-racial/sub-cultural performances, Gwen Stefani's dancing "Harajuku girls" in her solo debut video Hollaback Girl, and even Busta Rhymes as evidenced in Dangerous. How do we begin to navigate the dynamics of race and performance in the visual field when meaning is constantly made and re-made?
