Art professor Ken Gonzales-Day and his newest exhibit, entitled “Profiled,” are featured in a recent article by The Los Angeles Times. His installation, which began while he served as artist-in-residence at The Getty Institute in 2008, focuses on the development of modern concept of race.
“My hope is that it would open up the possibility of thinking about what signifies race, what signifies difference, what signifies whiteness,” notes Gonzales-Day during the interview. “In many of these sculptures we presume that they have a race, right? When they’re just marble or terracotta or clay. The relationship between resemblance and reality can be deceptive.”
Born to a white mother and Mexican father, Gonzales-Day draws from his own personal experience as a person of mixed-ethnicity. He traveled extensively to gain relevant subject matter, he photographed busts and sculptures all over the world, and referenced a wide range of sources — everything from writers and philosophers to alternative science and the Enlightenment.
To read the full article online, visit the Los Angeles Times website.
![Ken Gonzales-Day, Unititled (Henry Weekes, Bust of African Woman (based on an image of Mary Seacole [1805-1881]), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles ; Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Bust of Mm. Adélaïde Julie Mirleau de Neuville, neé Garnier d'Isle, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), 2011, digital wallpaper, 10 x 20 feet.](https://www.scrippscollege.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/files/2011/02/Ken-Gonzales-Day-Untitled-2.jpg){kind=link}
![Ken Gonzales-Day, Untitled (Pierre-Jean David d'Angers, Bust of Ann Buchan Robinson, Museum of the City of New York; Joseph Nollekens, Venus, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Malvina Hoffman, Japanese Woman [337087], The Field Museum, Chicago; Malvina Hoffman, Eskimo Woman [337060], The Field Museum, Chicago), Lightjet Print, 43 x 120in.](https://www.scrippscollege.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/files/2011/02/Ken-Gonzales-Day-Untitled.jpg){kind=link}