Book excerpt: A smart account of a defining moment in African American contemporary art. The early 1990s were a game changer for black artists. Many rose prominently to lead the field of advanced art more generally--artists like GlennLigon, Renee Green, Fred Wilson, Lorna Simpson and others. It was in the early 1990s when African American artists began to produce installation and conceptual work, where previously, as an identity group, they had focused on figurative painting and craft work. Now, suddently, artists were producing site specific installations, sound art, performance, and readymades that sought to immerse the viewer in environments that provoked the experience of slaveryand raised awareness of the constructedness of "blackness" in this country. "