Chakaia Booker

This publication accompanies the first comprehensive museum survey of the American artist.Chakaia Booker: The Observance explores the artists signature formmonumental works made of rubberwhile showcasing her artistic innovations across mediums. With new photography of the wide-ranging exhibition at ICA Miami, historic images, and newly commissioned scholarship, the publication illuminates key themes in the artists practice. With special attention to Bookers totemic and anthropomorphic assemblages fabricated from cast-off tires, the volume highlights Bookers ongoing expression of ecological and technological concerns, examinations of racial and economic disparities, and her interest in the symbolism of the automobile in American culture. Alongside essays by Erin Jenoa Gilbert, Aruna dSouza, and Stephanie Seidel as well as an interview with the artist by Alex Gartenfeld, this catalog includes some of Bookers most topical works, including Chu Ching (2012), a cross on a wheelbarrow that resembles Jesus being dismounted from the cross. The artists photographic series, Foundling Warrior Quest (2010) and Graveyard Series (1995), are featured to explore the importance of performance and mythology in her practice. Anchoring the book is The Observance (1995), an immersive installation made of deconstructed rubber tires and tubesBookers first large-scale installation in this signature material, chosen by the artist for its associations with riots.