Subtleties of thought and elegance of expression are characteristic of Mercer's writings, read avidly by those art historians who have sought insight into Black British Cultural Studies, increasingly influential over the last thirty years. Mercer's essays offer a welcome contrast to art-historical scholarship aimed at the specialist, and also to criticism on the contemporary arts of the African and Asian diasporas.
Amna Malik
Art History
Mercer's optimistic spirit encourages the reader to dare to travel in space and time in order to see better.
Maureen Murphy
Critique d'art
Travel & See is an essential addition to any art historian's library.... With Travel & See, Mercer further establishes himself as a leading figure in the field while also modeling the type of work that still needs to be done. The volume shows how Mercer's writing redefined contemporary art history just as much as it shows how black diaspora artists changed contemporary art.
Uchenna Itam
Shift
Travel & See benefits from a retrospective gaze; Mercer's 30-year career gives him a judicious distance on some highly charged aesthetic movements and issues.... Mercer's volume ... does not simply collect his past writings; it forces us to see international modernism in a way that has implications for future scholarship both within and beyond the field of black diasporic art. Travel & See posits Mercer as a chronicler not only of the field of contemporary art of the Afro-modern world, but of the inextricable ties of black diasporic and modernism itself.
Sarah Lewis
Art in America