ABSTRACT
Performance, installation, and new media artist Richard Lou’s work has compelled spectators to think critically about bordered identities, power inequities, post-colonial realities, race relations, and other socially relevant issues. His provocative and dynamic performances, installations, and multimedia pieces have also encouraged audiences to problematize clear distinctions between art and activism, and between “high” art and popular culture. Primarily known as a Chicano artist, Lou’s work for the past ten years, however, has paid great attention to his Chinese heritage and to the transnational subjectivities that animate social identities. Having grown up in the San Diego/Tijuana border region with a Mexican mother and a Chinese father, Lou’s experiences have been defined by the transnationalism of the border region itself, but also by the biculturalism of his upbringing, as it is made evident in his multimedia installation Stories on My Back (2010-) [see Figure 9.1].
