AMERICAN BOOK AWARD WINNERFar-ranging and thought-provoking essays on the relation of art and ethnic identity.&10;This first collection by award-winning author John Yau, drawn from decades of work, includes essays about Black, Asian, Latinx, and Native American artists: sculptors Luis Jimenez and Ruth Asawa; second generation Abstract Expressionists such as the Black painter Ed Clark and the Japanese American painter Matsumi Kanemitsu; the performance artists James Luna and Patty Chang; the photographers Laurel Nakadate and Teju Cole; and a generation of Asian American artists that has emerged during the last decade. &10;&10;While identity is at the fore in this collection, Yau's essays also propose the need for an expansive view of identity, as in the essay &8220;On Reconsidering Identity,&8221; which explores the writings of Lydia Cabrera and Edouard Glissant, and the possibilities of creolisation versus the reductiveness of Aime Cesaire&8217;s Negritude. &10;&10;Please Wait by the Coat Room is for serious readers interested in the art and artists of color that many mainstream institutions and critics misrepresented or overlooked.