Nicolas De Jesus: A Mexican Artist for Global Justice
Author: Patrice Giasson
Format: Hardback, 230mm x 280mm, 1130g, 176 pages
Published: Hirmer Verlag, Germany, 2022
Well-known for his etchings on bark paper featuring dazzling skeleton-characters working, celebrating, walking the streets, or crossing borders, Nicolas De Jesus's political commitment is also expressed through powerful large-scale paintings that tackle a wide range of urgent themes including immigration, human rights, and environmental instability.
Nicolas De Jesus's art offers a nostalgic and yet lucid interpretation of our world. While his art emerges from Mexican artistic traditions, it is coupled with his international experience in cities like Chicago, Paris, and Jakarta. His work also addresses crises like the storming of the US Capitol, the repression faced by migrants and Black Americans, and the disasters of COVID 19. Covering three decades of artwork, this book offers a challenge to the conventional definition of contemporary art.
With essays by Felipe Ehrenberg (late contemporary artist, Mexico); Patrice Giasson (Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas, Neuberger Museum of Art); Aline Hemond (Professor of Anthropology, Universite de Picardie-Jules Verne); Julian Kreimer (Associate Professor of Art History, SUNY-Purchase); Caroline Perree (art historian; Associate Researcher, CEMCA); Pablo Piccato (Professor of History, Columbia University)
Patrice Giasson is the Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas at the Neuberger Museum of Art (NMA) and teaches in the Department of Art History at SUNY Purchase College since 2009. He specializes in Modern and Contemporary Latin American art. He has curated several exhibitions of Latin American art and published extensively. He is the editor of A Studio in the Museum: The Playful Universe of Ignacio Iturria (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2018); Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2015); Pre-Columbian Remix: The Art of Enrique Chagoya, Demian Flores, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, and Nadin Ospina (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2013); Brincando Fronteras, Creaciones Locales Mexicanas y Globalizacion (Mexico: CONACULTA, 2012); and Memorias sobre la Pintura Didactica y la Escritura Figurativa de los Antiguos Mexicanos (Mexico: UNAM, 2002, 2nd Ed. 2009). He is the co-editor, with Helaine Posner, of Leandro Erlich: Port of Reflections (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2017). From 2005 to 2007, Giasson was Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS-PARIS) and recipient of a Fellowship of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Author: Patrice Giasson
Format: Hardback, 230mm x 280mm, 1130g, 176 pages
Published: Hirmer Verlag, Germany, 2022
Well-known for his etchings on bark paper featuring dazzling skeleton-characters working, celebrating, walking the streets, or crossing borders, Nicolas De Jesus's political commitment is also expressed through powerful large-scale paintings that tackle a wide range of urgent themes including immigration, human rights, and environmental instability.
Nicolas De Jesus's art offers a nostalgic and yet lucid interpretation of our world. While his art emerges from Mexican artistic traditions, it is coupled with his international experience in cities like Chicago, Paris, and Jakarta. His work also addresses crises like the storming of the US Capitol, the repression faced by migrants and Black Americans, and the disasters of COVID 19. Covering three decades of artwork, this book offers a challenge to the conventional definition of contemporary art.
With essays by Felipe Ehrenberg (late contemporary artist, Mexico); Patrice Giasson (Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas, Neuberger Museum of Art); Aline Hemond (Professor of Anthropology, Universite de Picardie-Jules Verne); Julian Kreimer (Associate Professor of Art History, SUNY-Purchase); Caroline Perree (art historian; Associate Researcher, CEMCA); Pablo Piccato (Professor of History, Columbia University)
Patrice Giasson is the Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas at the Neuberger Museum of Art (NMA) and teaches in the Department of Art History at SUNY Purchase College since 2009. He specializes in Modern and Contemporary Latin American art. He has curated several exhibitions of Latin American art and published extensively. He is the editor of A Studio in the Museum: The Playful Universe of Ignacio Iturria (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2018); Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2015); Pre-Columbian Remix: The Art of Enrique Chagoya, Demian Flores, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, and Nadin Ospina (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2013); Brincando Fronteras, Creaciones Locales Mexicanas y Globalizacion (Mexico: CONACULTA, 2012); and Memorias sobre la Pintura Didactica y la Escritura Figurativa de los Antiguos Mexicanos (Mexico: UNAM, 2002, 2nd Ed. 2009). He is the co-editor, with Helaine Posner, of Leandro Erlich: Port of Reflections (NMA, SUNY Purchase College, 2017). From 2005 to 2007, Giasson was Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS-PARIS) and recipient of a Fellowship of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.