Second Skin: Josephine Baker & the Modern Surface

by Anne Anlin Cheng

Through the figure of Josephine Baker, Second Skin tells the story of an unexpected yet enduring intimacy between the invention of a modernist style and the theatricalization of black skin at the turn of the twentieth century. Stepping outside of the platitudes surrounding this iconic figure, Anne A. Cheng argues that Baker's famous nakedness must be understood within larger philosophic and aesthetic debates about, and desire for, 'pure surface' that crystallized at the convergence of modern art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Through Cheng's analysis, Baker emerges as a central artist whose work engages with and impacts various modes of modernist display such as film, photography, art, and even the modern house.

Genres: Theory, Nonfiction, Academic, History, Architecture

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 28, 2010

About the author

Anne Anlin Cheng is Professor of English and African American Literature at Princeton University. She specializes in twentieth-century literature and visual culture. She received her B.A. in English and Creative Writing at Princeton, her Masters in English and Creative Writing from Stanford University, and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from University of California at Berkeley. She teaches a wide range of courses in the areas of comparative race studies, aesthetic theory, psychoanalytic theory, literary criticism, law, film and gender studies, poetry and poetics.

Reviews

[Aisling · Rating 5 out of 5]

so excited to go back to paris and go on a josephine baker pilgrimage

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What?

[Ayanna Dozier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne Anlin Cheng’s Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface is fascinating study on how Josephine Baker inspired modernist architects. Cheng conducts a detail study on the blueprints for the house the art critic and architect Aldof Loos gave to Baker as a gift. Additionally, Cheng examines the relationship between Baker and Le Corbusier to argue that Baker’s presence had a significant impact on the work of Le Corbusier. While this book is not a detailed study on Baker’s performative repertoire, it instead offers an interesting analysis on how Baker’s skin (in addition to her dances and persona) bears an intimate relationship with twentieth century’s question and idea of a modern surface. More simply put, Cheng examines how modern surface (in theory and practice via architecture) is connected to the process of racialization with smooth, clean surfaces being attributed to whiteness and cluttered, filthy surfaces being marked by Blackness. Cheng examines how modern architects describe their encounters with Baker as a process of “crossing over” in their work and how that experience then appears on the surface of the building. Second Skin is certainly an engrossing read, but it does leave the reader desiring a more in depth study to be conducted on the work of Josephine Baker. This is no fault of the author, but I can attest that the in-depth analysis on Aldof Loos, Picasso, etc. did catch me by surprise.