Overview

Ken Gonzales-Day’s work confronts the role of the visual in conveying history or in history’s absences, including those bodies and spaces deliberately erased, forgotten, or never acknowledged. As illustrated and discussed in Ken Gonzales-Day: History’s “Nevermade,” his photography, films, drawings, and paintings interrogate race and power, questioning how bodies are seen, rendered, or made invisible. His art moves between presence and absence, compelling viewers to confront their own position in relation to systems of oppression and representation. This volume, accompanying the exhibition of the same name, offers the first comprehensive study of Gonzales-Day’s practice. Organized around his major series, sections of the book—including Rethinking History, Collecting Race, Forging Community, and Redrawing Boundaries— explore how his work engages with archives, bodies, museums, and public space to challenge institutional narratives. Through critical analysis and illustrated throughout, Ken Gonzales-Day: History’s “Nevermade” illuminates the profound political and theoretical stakes of his art. Essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners in art history, photography, museum studies, American history, and decolonial and queer studies, this book is a testament to the power of art to reckon with the past and imagine new futures.

Full Product Details

Author:   Amelia Jones (Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California, USA)
Publisher:   Intellect
Imprint:   Intellect Books
ISBN:  

9781835951378

ISBN 10:   1835951376
Pages:   408
Publication Date:   04 August 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Awaiting stock  

Table of Contents

List of Figures Director’s Foreword    Bethany Montagano Acknowledgments    Amelia Jones Introduction: Visualizing History’s “Nevermade” Introduction: Ken Gonzales-Day’s “Nevermade” and the Embodied Reworking of Discourse    Amelia Jones Section 1: Finding a Path (Early Work) Introduction to Section 1    Amelia Jones 1. Finding a Path: Amelia Jones in Conversation with Ken Gonzales-Day 2. Ken Gonzales-Day Narrative Timeline    Nadia Estrada and Yumu Huo (with Amelia Jones) Section 2: Rethinking History (Queering/Decolonizing the Family) Introduction to Section 2    Amelia Jones 3. Excerpts from Ramoncita Gonzales [aka Ken Gonzales-Day], The Bone Grass Boy: The Secret Banks of the Conejos River (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892/1996)       Ken Gonzales-Day, “Foreword”       Kenny Gonzales [aka Ken Gonzales-Day], “Preface” 4. The Archive and the Nevermade: Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Histories in Ken Gonzales-Day’s Bone-Grass Boy    Ren Heintz   Section 3: Rethinking History (Archives) Introduction to Section 3    Amelia Jones 5. The Space Between: The Lynching Project    Ken Gonzales-Day 6. Spectacularizing the Sacrifice: Ken Gonzales-Day’s Erased Lynching Series    Cyrielle Lévêque 7. Searching for a Brown Commons: Racial Affect and Re-Enactment in Ken Gonzales-Day’s Lynching Projects    Mary Coffey   Section 4: Collecting Race (Skin/Museums) Introduction to Section 4    Amelia Jones 8. “Race, Whiteness, and Absence in Studio Practice” Ken Gonzales-Day 9. Profiled     Ken Gonzales-Day 10. “Different Measures: From Xipe Totec to Facial Recognition to System Overload”    Ken Gonzales-Day 11. Metropolitan Division: Ken Gonzales-Day between the Getty Museum and the LAPD    Jason Hill 12. The Profiled Series and Hemispheric Racial Formations    Tatiana Flores Section 5: Forging Community (Publics) Introduction to Section 5    Amelia Jones 13. Bringing Art Out of the Museum    Ken Gonzales-Day 14. Art as Propaganda: Advertising for Racial Equality in Ken Gonzales-Day’s Public Art    Ana Briz 15. Stepping into Memory: Ken Gonzales-Day and the Alternative Los Angeles    Nadia Estrada Section 6: Imaging Bodies (Portraits) Introduction to Section 6    Amelia Jones 16. Queer-ish: Photography and the LGBTQ+ Imaginary    Ken Gonzales-Day 17. Of Life as a Menace and a Shield: The Memento Mori and Pandemic Portrait Series    Taína Caragol 18. Ken Gonzales-Day’s Embodied Brown Historicity: Cecilia Fajardo-Hill in with Amelia Jones Section 7: Redrawing Boundaries (Land) Introduction to Section 7    Amelia Jones 19. Another Land / Decolonial Drawings    Ken Gonzales-Day 20. Engaging an Elder and Tracing the Past: Ken Gonzales-Day and Steve Pratt in Dialogue   Contributor Biographies Index Ken Gonzales-Day Works  

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Author Information

Amelia Jones is Robert A. Day Professor and Vice Dean at Roski School of Art & Design, USC, Los Angeles, USA. Recent publications include the catalogue Queer Communion: Ron Athey (2020), co-edited with Andy Campbell (accompanying a retrospective of Athey’s work, which she curated); and In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance (2021).

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