CROSSING BORDERS, BREAKING BOUNDARIES... B O R D E R C R O S S I N G S is book represents the culmination of the efforts of a team of dis- tinguished connoisseurs in many related areas of modern art studies who have investigated and scrutinized the work of Jim Amaral from a wide variety of vantage points. eir texts range broadly, from the socio-historical to the psychosexual ramifications of his pluralistic achievement. Amaral’s lengthy career has mainly developed in Co- lombia, but it is, in fact, equally understandable within the context of many transnational currents of art production. Amaral may be described as a protean figure that works in drawing, painting, sculpture, found-object based assemblage and book production. A participant in dozens of solo and group shows on three continents, Amaral’s art is well known to his legions of ad- mirers who have, over the decades, eagerly awaited the latest pro- ductions of his studio. Judging from the wide dissemination of his art and its presence within numerous private collections and public museums in North and South America as well as in Europe, he has hardly wanted for wide recognition and even adulation throughout the years of his on-going career, stretching from the s to the pres- ent. Yet his art rejects easy classification and thus has not become a component of the conventional histories of contemporary western visual production that form the background of an (often clichéd) hierarchy of values in the art world. From my point of view this is all to the good, as the list of “famous and collectible” artists within the increasingly narrow range of contemporary art historical super-stars becomes limited to those whose astronomical prices can be afforded by the so-called one percent. eir purchases at auctions and inter- national art fairs are the subjects of tabloid reports in newspapers, blogs and websites because of their spectacular splurge-effect. Ama- ral does not, happily, belong to this club (with its ever-changing list and fleeting reputations). ose contemporary denizens of the bien- nial circuit are often, in fact, easy to classify according to the genres they practice or the popularly accepted aesthetic (or, more properly, financial) niches into which they may be categorized. Amaral’s work P R E S E N T A T I O N Crossing Borders, Breaking Boundaries: An Artist in a Cross-Cultural Context B Y E D W A R D J . S U L L I V A N . Self-portrait, €‚. ‚‚ׄ… cm, pencil and ink on paper. Pages -“: . Pages -“: Tree , •… –. ‚•×• ו… cm, bronce (details; see p.„„•). Page –: . Jim in his studio at Casa Amaral, •… €.