react/review: a responsive journal for art & architecture

In this issue of react/review, Thomas Busciglio-Ritter addresses the production and distribution of wallpapers such as “Views of North American” in the nineteenth century, arguing that they are intertwined with a history “of racially charged representation” that constructs and validates a white aristocratic identity. I shift viewpoints to consider elements of this wallpaper that construct and attempt to validate the identity of a nation. From this vantage point, I argue that the Zuber & Co. wallpaper “Views of North America” is representative of a strategic fragmentation of conflict in pursuit of establishing a heritage for the newer nation, the United States. The wallpaper’s eventual installation in the White House in the 1960s showcases a political technique that uses representations of technological and social landscapes to obscure conflicts of exploitation and dispossession. This technique is related to the pursuit of constructing a shared heritage that undergirds a sense of community.