April 29, 2016

Sensing Grace Jones and Other Sensuous Acts of Knowing

Uri McMillan, Assistant Professor of English, at UCLA approaches the oversized, sculptural and strikingly geometric presence of Jamaican-born model-actress-fashion muse-performer Grace Jones as a figure whose slipperiness has frustrated attempts to decode precise meanings from her large body of work.

Via performance studies and recent turns to the sensorium, McMillan repositions Jones, the seeming enfant terrible of art history in an interdisciplinary framework that recognizes her as a savvy performer, rather than simple aesthetic object, and one that approaches her through multiple senses, rather than simply the musical or ocular. In doing so, Jones emerges as a figure exceeding mere skin, surface, and sound.