DIVA study of art in post-independence Senegal./div

Porter's work analyzes the important developments and individuals in African American painting and sculpture from the pre-Civil War period to World War II. "James A. Porter was an art historian, educator, curator, and visual artist. He is first remembered by academics as an art historian who taught some of the best minds and visual artists who studied at Howard University during the span of his teaching career. "A pioneer in establishing the field of African American art history," writes Jeffreen M. Hayes, who rightly declares that: James A. Porter was instrumental as the first scholar to provide a systematic, critical analysis of African American artists and their works of art. An artist himself, he provided a unique and critical approach to the analysis of the work. Dedicated to educating and writing about African American artists, Porter set the foundation for artists and art historians to probe and unearth the necessary skills essential to their artistic and scholarly endeavors. The canon is borne from Porter's determination to document and view African American art in the context of American art."

In the past decade, contemporary African art has been featured in major exhibtions in museums, galleries, international biennials, and other forums. African cinema has established itself on the stage of world cinema, culminating in the Ouagadougou Film Festival. While African art and visual culture have become an integral part of the art history and cultural studies curricula in universities worldwide, critical readings and interpretations have remained difficult to obtain. This pioneering anthology collects twenty key essays in which major critical thinkers, scholars, and artists explore contemporary African visual culture, locating it within current cultural debates and within the context of the continent's history. The sections of the book are Theory and Cultural Transaction, History, Location and Practice, and Negotiated Identities. Copublished with the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA), London

This edited volume, including contributions from scholars with different areas of specialization, investigates a broad range of methodologies, ideologies and pedagogies focusing on the study of the art of Africa, using theoretical reflections and applications from primitivism to metamodernism. Chapters break the externally imposed boundaries of Africa-related works beyond the conventional fragments of traditional, contemporary and diaspora. The contributions are significantly broad in their methodologies, ideologies and pedagogical coverage; yet, they all address various aspects of African artistic creativity, demonstrating the possibilities for analytical experiments that art history presents to scholars of the discipline today. The Ìwà (character) of each approach is unique; nevertheless, each is useful toward a fuller understanding of African art studies as an independent aspect of art historical research that is a branch or bud of the larger family of art history. The volume respects, highlights and celebrates the distinctiveness of each methodical approach, recognizing its contribution to the overall character or Ìwà of African art studies. The book will be of interest to students in undergraduate or graduate, intermediate or advanced courses as well as scholars in art history and African studies.

An intellectual biography of a modern African artist and his immense contribution to twentieth-century art history. The history of world art has long neglected the work of modern African artists and their search for forms of modernist expression as either irrelevant to the discourse of modern art or as fundamentally subservient to the established narrative of Western European modernist practice. With this engaging new volume, Sylvester Ogbechie refutes this approach by examining the life and work of Ben Enwonwu (1917-94), a premier African modernist and pioneer whose career opened the way for the postcolonial proliferation and increased visibility of African art. In the decades between Enwonwu's birth and death, modernization produced new political structures and new forms of expression inAfrican cultures, inspiring important developments in modern African art. Within this context, Ogbechie evaluates important issues such as the role of Anglo-Nigerian colonial culture in the development of modern Nigerian art, andEnwonwu's involvement with international discourses of modernism in Europe, Africa, and the United States over a period of five decades. The author also interrogates Enwonwu's use of the radical politics of Negritude ideology to define modern African art against canonical interpretations of Euro-modernism; and the artist's visual and critical contributions to Pan Africanism, Nigerian nationalism, and postcolonial interpretations of African modernity. First and foremost an intellectual biography of Ben Enwonwu as a modern African artist, rather than an exhaustive critical exploration of the discourse of modernism in African art history or in modern art in general, Ben Enwonwu situates the artist historically and interprets his work in ways that surpass traditional discourse around the canon of modern art. Sylvester Ogbechie is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A revised edition of this seminal title, surveying the diverse, ever-evolving field of contemporary African art from the 1950s to today, illustrated in color throughout. Contemporary African art has grown out of the diverse histories and cultural heritage of the African continent and its diaspora. It is not characterized by one particular style, technique, or theme, but by a bricolage-like attitude toward art making, incorporating and building upon the structures from which older, pre- colonial and colonial genres were made. In this revised and updated edition of Contemporary African Art, Sidney Littlefield Kasfir examines the major themes, developments, and accomplishments in African art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Organized thematically, the book includes new chapters on the history of African photography and the growth of the global art market, alongside significant discussions of patronage, mediation, artistic training, and national and diaspora identities. Generously illustrated throughout, including work by artists such as El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, William Kentridge, and Ibrahim El-Salahi, the book draws on interviews with many contemporary artists and art world professionals. Contemporary African Art is a fascinating, comprehensive survey of art from the African continent and its global diaspora.