Dr. Jordana Moore Saggese is an Associate Professor of American Art. Her work centers on modern and contemporary American visual culture with an emphasis on expressions and theorizations of blackness. Her writing has appeared in Exposure: The Journal of the Society for Photographic Education, The International Review of African-American Art, nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and Art Journal. She has also published work online for Artforum, CAA Reviews, and Khan Academy. Her first book Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art (University of California Press, 2014), which reexamines the painting practice of the often-mythologized 1980s art star Jean-Michel Basquiat, received the PEN Center USA Award for Exceptional First Book in 2015. Dr. Saggese's second book The Basquiat Reader: A Critical Anthology will be published by the University of California Press as part of the "Documents of Contemporary Art" series edited by Jack Flam. Through a combination of interviews with the artist, hard-to-find articles, and previously unpublished research by the author, The Basquiat Reader provides a full picture of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s views on art and culture, his working process, as well as the critical significance of his work both then and now. Dr. Saggese's current book project Game On: The Black Male Boxer in American Art and Culture maps the visual terrain of racial ideology in the United States, paying particular attention to the intersecting discourses of blackness, masculinity, and sport. She is Editor-in-Chief for the College Art Association's Art Journal.
Jordana Moore Saggese
Books
—The Basquiat Reader: A Critical Anthology, part of the "Documents of Contemporary Art" series, edited by Jack Flam. University of California Press, forthcoming)
— Game On: The Black Male Boxer in American Art and Culture (in progress, expected completion of manuscript Fall 2019)
2014 Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art (University of California Press)
Academic Journals
—“On the Ropes: Boxing, Contemporary Art, and the Politics of Black Masculinity” (in progress, to be submitted to GLQ in June 2018)
2016 “Diversity and Difference,” an edited collection of essays with introduction, Art Journal 75, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 70-109.
2011“‘Cut and Mix’: Jean-Michel Basquiat in Retrospect,” Nka: The Journal of Contemporary African Art 28 (Fall/Winter): 88–95.
2007 “The Myth of Neutrality: Re-Considering Conceptual Art Photography,” in exposure: The Journal of the Society for Photographic Education 40, no. 1 (Spring): 33–42.
Book Chapters
2017 “Jean-Michel Basquiat and the American Canon,” in Re-envisioning the Contemporary Art Canon: Perspectives in a Global World, edited by Ruth Iskin (Routledge), 59-73.
Exhibition Catalogues
2018 “The Heads of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” catalogue essay for forthcoming Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective (Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris).
2017 “Screens, Stereotypes, Subjects,” in Basquiat: Boom for Real (Barbican Center, London).
2016 “Knowing an Image: Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Question of Text,” in Words Are All We Have: The Paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat (Nahmad Contemporary, distributed by Hatje Cantz), 48-63.
2012“Appropriation in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Ménage á Trois: Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente (Bonn:Kunst-und Austellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland), 135–143.
2008 Selected Entries, Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion: Selected Works (Urbana, IL: The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois), 324–331.
2003 Selected Entries, Drawings of Choice from a New York Collection, ed. Josef Helfenstein and Jonathan Fineberg (Champaign, IL: Krannert Art Museum, in association with University of Washington Press), 39–40, 52–57,122–123, and 136– 139.
Magazines
2016“David Hammons?,” a collaborative text by Wattis Institute’s Research Group, Flash Art no. 308 (May 2016): 56-63.
2015“Fade to Black: An Interview with Jefferson Pinder,” International Review of African American Art vol. 5, no. 23 (Spring 2015), 43-47.
2012“The Pleasures and the Perils of Abstraction,” Review of Choose Paint! Choose Abstraction!, exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora. International Review of African-American Art (June). Online only. http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/The-Pleasures-and-the-Perils-of-Ab...
Book Reviews
2011“Review of Adrian Piper: Race, Gender and Embodiment by John P. Bowles and Enacting Others: Politics of Identity in Eleanor Antin, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, and Anna Deveare Smith by Cherise Smith. College Art Association Reviews (December).
Encyclopedias/ Online Education
— “African American Painting” in Oxford Bibliographies in African American Studies. Online(in progress)
— “Who Was Jean-Michel Basquiat?,” commissioned script for Ted-Ed video series. Online (in progress)
2015 “Jean-Michel Basquiat, Horn Players,” SmartHistory (Khan Academy). Online. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/iden...
2013 “The Pictures Generation” (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/iden... ) and “Identity Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream” (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/iden... ). SmartHistory (Khan Academy). Online.
2011 “Howardena Pindell,” “Joyce Scott,” and “Alison Saar,” in The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, vol. 4, edited by Joan Marter (Oxford University Press).
2006 “Howardena Pindell,” “Joyce Scott,” and “Alison Saar,” in Grove Art Online/The Dictionary of Art, edited by Whitney Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press). Online.
Other Publications
2012 “Storytelling.” Gallery text for the exhibition “City Beneath the City.” San José Institute of Contemporary Art (May–September).
2010 “Jean-Michel Basquiat,” Exhibition Preview, Artforum (summer). Online only.
2008 “A Map of the Mind,” in Andy Ducett, artist catalogue (Privately Printed).
Department of Art History and Archaeology
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