European Centre for Art, Culture and Science

Thursday January 21 2010 / Arts & Philosophy

Contemporary African Art Since 1980

Okwui Enwezor, renowned Nigeria born curator and art critic, will present his latest publication Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (Damani, 2009). Enwezor will reflect in on the ways artists have responded to social and political changes in Africa, and how they have incorporated new aesthetic principles and artistic concepts, images and imageries to deal with such changes.

He will sign his book Contemporary African Art Since 1980, which is available for 50 euro after the presentation in Felix Meritis and at Athenaeum Bookstore.

Okwui Enwezor is a member of the Editorial Board of the Prince Claus Fund Library and advisor to the Prince Claus Fund Knowledge Centre.

Contemporary African Art Since 1980
Contemporary African Art Since 1980 is the first major survey of the work of contemporary African artists from diverse situations, locations, and generations who work either in or outside of Africa, but whose practices engage and occupy the social and cultural complexities of the continent since the past 30 years. Its frame of analysis is absorbed with historical transitions: from the end of the postcolonial utopias of the sixties during the 1980s to the geopolitical, economic, technological, and cultural shifts incited by globalization. This book is both narrower in focus in the periods it reflects on, and specific in the ground it covers. It begins by addressing the tumultuous landscape of contemporary Africa, examining landmarks and narratives, exploring divergent systems of representation, and interrogating the ways artists have responded to change and have incorporated new aesthetic principles and artistic concepts, images and imaginaries to deal with such changes. Organized in chronological order, the book covers all major artistic mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, drawing, collage. It also covers aesthetic forms and genres, from conceptual to formalist, abstract to figurative practices. Moving between discursive and theoretical registers, the principal questions the book analyzes are: what and when is contemporary African art? Who might be included in the framing of such a conceptual identity? It also addresses the question of globalization and contemporary African art.

Okwui Enwezor, a leading curator and scholar of contemporary art, is the former Dean of Academic Affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute, and founding publisher and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.

Chika Okeke-Agulu is Assistant Professor of Art and Archeology and African American Studies at Princeton University, and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.

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