In Perpetual Slavery, Ciarán Finlayson considers whether we have attained a post-emancipation world through extended readings of works by Ralph Lemon and Cameron Rowland. In dialogue with these contemporary African-American artists' inventive strains of post-conceptualism, Finlayson reflects on the legacy of slavery, investigating a central contradiction of capitalist modernity: though chattel slavery has officially ended, conscripted labor and carceral statism persist. The essay contemplates the possibility of freedom in the current political context, probing the historical relationship of art to capitalism.
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Published by Floating Opera Press, 80 pgs, 17 × 12 cm, Softcover, 2023, 978-3-9823894-4-8