Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace.Reading the Contemporary: African Art African art, art created by the peoples south of the Sahara. The predominant art forms are masks and figures, which were generally used in religious ceremonies. from Theory to the Marketplace Edited by Olu Oguibe Olu Oguibe is a Nigerian-American artist and public intellectual.[1] He is Associate Professor of Art and African-American studies and Associate Director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, as well as a senior fellow of and Okwui Enwezor The MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, May 2000, $35.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-262-65051-7 For the past decade, writers and curators Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor have been talking in public about contemporary African Art. Their efforts are joined by a small number of institutions now seeking--and gaining--an increasingly appreciative public's attention. Their collection of essays on the subject explores the visual and theoretical terrain and challenges posed by African art at the turn of the 21st century. Oguibe and Enwezor claim African art is in a "golden age." Its new visibility, they assert, challenges centuries of comfortable notions about the West's cultural authority and authenticity. As Oguibe notes, these artists challenge "the colonial desire for the faceless native, the anonym an·o·nym n. 1. An anonymous person. 2. A pseudonym. [French anonyme, from Late Latin an ," which still lives in some international art circles. This book shows us art that asserts the authority, autonomy, self-assertiveness and sheer breathtaking scope of African creativity today. It surveys the scene with theoretical essays which may interest the art insider more than the general reader and with accessible essays on individual artists, countries and genres. New York University New York University, mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the Professor Manthia Diawara's survey of contemporary African cinema is informative and rewarding, as are the essays on Senegalese and Nigerian contemporary art. Also included are essays which survey the work of artists like Ivorian painter Ouattara, Namibian artist John Muafengejo and portrait photographer Seydou Keita from Mali. Oguibe and Enwezor have compiled a book that is richly illustrated with photos of the artists' work; anyone interested in contemporary art should add this thoughtful collection to their library. Geoffrey Jacques, author of Suspended Knowledge, is a poet and writer whose essays on art have appeared in numerous publications. |
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