Ken Gonzales-Day - History's "Nevermade"

Through visualizing, absence, and erasure, Ken Gonzales-Day reveals the deeply political act of seeing, forcing us to reconsider the histories we inherit.

Ken Gonzales-Day's work confronts the role of the visual in conveying history or in history's absences, including bodies and spaces deliberately erased, forgotten, or never acknowledged. As illustrated and discussed in Ken Gonzales-Day: History's "Nevermade," his photography, film, drawing, and painting interrogate race and power, questioning how bodies are seen, rendered, or made invisible. His art moves between presence and absence, compelling viewers to confront their own position in relation to systems of oppression and representation.

This volume, accompanying the exhibition of the same name, offers the first comprehensive study of Gonzales-Day's practice. Organized around his major series, sections of the book—including Rethinking History, Collecting Race, Forging Community, and Redrawing Boundaries—explore how his work engages with archives, bodies, museums, and public space to challenge institutional narratives. Through critical analysis and over one hundred full-color images, Ken Gonzales-Day: History's "Nevermade" illuminates the profound political and theoretical stakes of his art.

Essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners in art history, photography, museum studies, American history, and decolonial and queer studies, this book is a testament to the power of art to reckon with the past and imagine new futures.