PaintinginExcess

The upheavals of glasnost and perestroika followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union remarkably transformed the art scene in Kyiv, launching Ukrainian contemporary art as a global phenomenon. The previously calm waters of the culturally provincial capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic became radically stirred with new and daring art made publicly visible for the first time since the avant-garde period of the early twentieth century. As artists were freed from the dictates of the fading Communist ideology and the constraints of late socialist realism, an explosion of styles emerged, creating an effect of baroque excess. This exhibition catalogue traces and documents the diverse artistic manifestations of these transitional and exhilarating years in Kyiv while providing some historical artworks for context. Published in partnership with the Zimmerli Museum.

“Once banned as immoral, Two Women reads like a forerunner of the psychological novel, full of eros, thanatos, and other deep impulses both dark and light. It’s a love story, a tragedy, and a philosophical thriller that bears the reader along on its verbal and conceptual flights as participant in its many raptures and heartaches, its ethical struggles between desire and obligations. Among its character studies, the Countess is as finely drawn and layered a protagonist as you could want, as memorable as many of the century’s great heroines, perhaps, and the highly lyrical discourses throughout are finely-wrought cameos of sexual politics and the tensions born of societal pressures. The translator, Barbara Ichiishi, makes it all come alive.”

—Kelly Washbourne, coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation

“Remarkably, this pioneering novel—published five years before Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre by the most celebrated woman author in nineteenth-century Spain and Cuba—has never been translated into English before now. Written at the height of Romanticism and set in Seville and Madrid, the novel dares to propose divorce, thus flouting the conventions of a deeply conservative Catholic Spain. Ichiishi’s sensitive translation successfully conveys the pernicious effects of a repressive society on the lives of men and women.”

—Catherine Davies, coeditor of Transnational Spanish Studies

CULTURAL STUDIES • LITERARY STUDIES

“This close study of Beat writers in the context of their experiences in Mexico is a revelation many times over. The author has plumbed the depths, discovering whole new dimensions in the US avant-garde, with an emphasis on women Beat writers long overdue. What we have here is a critical classic in the making, a must-read for anyone interested in the saga of the Beats.”

—Paul Buhle, co-editor, with Harvey Pekar, of The Beats: A Graphic History

“With The Beats in Mexico, David Stephen Calonne finally fills a critical gap in Beat Generation scholarship—tracing not only the influences of Mexico on the major Beat writers, but on their predecessors, followers, and contemporaries. We devoured this thoroughly-researched, beautifully written study. Highly recommended!”

—Arthur S. Nusbaum, Third Mind Books

“Calonne’s book brings together a mass of description, information, knowledge and quotation to form a wide-ranging compendium of Mexican connections across the Beat field. It should inspire scholars to examine in more depth a literary history too often chronicled in only the colourful but reductive terms of Beat biography.”

—Oliver Harris, Professor of American Literature at Keele University

AFRICANA • AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

“Paul Robeson was an artistic genius, moral titan, and courageous freedom fighter whom we must never forget!”

—Dr. Cornel West

“Sharon Rudahl’s graphic biography of Paul Robeson is vivid, well-informed, and deeply moving—a compelling account of a towering American hero, whose courage is more inspiring than ever at this fraught historical moment.”

—Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, Rutgers University

“With powerful drawings, meticulous attention to historical detail, and deep appreciation for his wife, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Rudahl, Buhle, and Ware provide us with a deeply moving tribute to the enormous talent, courage and genius of Paul Robeson.”

—Bettina Aptheker, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

LATINO/A/X STUDIES • LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

“Marchi provides a unique and valuable account of the rise of Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S., demonstrating the complex dynamics of ethnic and cultural identity in the contemporary cultural economy, urban community, and media environment.”

—Eric W. Rothenbuhler, author of Ritual Communication and co-editor of Media Anthropology

“What a difference a day (the Day of the Dead) makes! In the U.S. in the past generation, a Latin American family/religious ritual has been reinvented as a holiday of ethnic pride that builds bridges between new and settled immigrants, between Latinos and Anglos, and across cultural identity, consumerism, and political protest. Regina Marchi reveals all this in a marvelous work, a rare blend of charm, grace, attentive field work, and theoretical savvy.”

—Michael Schudson, author of The Good Citizen: A History of American Public Life