VISUAL CULTURE
Kobena Mercer: Profile
Kobena Mercer, formerly Visiting Professor at New York University and a Fellow at Cornell University, currently Reader in Visual Culture at Middlesex University, is the author of landmark texts in visual culture and has an international research profile in cultural studies. His first book, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies (1994) has been followed by monographs on contemporary artists, including Keith Piper: Relocating the Remains (1997) and Isaac Julien (2002, with Chris Darke) and contributions to exhibition catalogues including Pictura Britannica (Sydney, 1997), Africas: The Artist and the City (Barcelona, 2001) and Looking Both Ways: Artists of the Contemporary African Diaspora (New York, 2003). His research interests in issues of cultural identity, sexuality and representation inform recent articles contributed to frieze, Artforum International and Camera Austria, and he is currently editing a four-volume series of books called Annotating Art’s Histories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives in the Visual Arts (MIT Press and Institute of International Visual Arts, 2005). He is an inaugural recipient of the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, presented by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.
