Photos of "Profiled"

The Public Art Series continues with Mexican-American artist Ken Gonzales-Day, whose work illuminates how difference, otherness, and identity emerge through acts of seeing. His photographs of historical artifacts — ranging from archival postcards to marble busts — reveal the constructedness of racial categories and hierarchies alike. Using digital editing software, he experiments with absence, juxtaposition, and context in order to expose how we have been taught to see. On view at Playwrights Horizons, his Profiled project places sculptures of human figures from Asia, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Northern Europe, Singapore, and the United States in unexpected encounters with one another — not unlike many characters from many plays sharing a single stage.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

Image of an early 20th century soldier, crouching while wearing a gas mask, is pasted over the right side of an American Eagle ad. On the left side the same ad, a young male model crouches in front of a scenic road on the highway.

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