ARH 103: Art of Africa/African Diaspora

African Art invites you to explore the dynamic origins of the vast artistic expressions arising from the exotic and mystifying African continent. Since the discovery of African art at the end of the nineteenth century during the colonial expositions it has been a limitless source of inspiration for artists who, over time, have perpetually recreated these artworks. The power of Sub-Saharan African art lies within its visual diversity, demonstrating the creativity of the artists who are continuing to conceptualize new stylistic forms. From Mauritania to South Africa and from the Ivory Coast to Somalia, statues, masks, jewelry, pottery and tapestries compose a variety of daily and ritual objects springing from these richly varied societies.

The art of sub-Saharan Africa reveals the marvelous achievements of unknown artists over thousands of years. Their aesthetic ideal finds form in wood, ivory, fabric, bronze and iron. This illustrated study of traditional African art includes pieces from Western Sudan, the Congolese Basin, the Guinea coast, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and East and South Africa. Each piece is characterized by its own traditions and artistic forms. The earliest works date from the beginning of the first millennium, the most recent from the early 20th century. Unique and rare examples are documented, many heretofore virtually unknown.

A revised and updated edition of this seminal title, surveying the diverse, ever-evolving field of contemporary African art from the 1950s to now.

The Yoruba was one of the most important civilizations of sub-Saharan Africa. While the high quality and range of its artistic and material production have long been recognized, the art of the Yoruba has been judged primarily according to the standards and principles of Western aesthetics. In this book, which merges the methods of art history, archaeology, and anthropology, Rowland Abiodun offers new insights into Yoruba art and material culture by examining them within the context of the civilization's cultural norms and values and, above all, the Yoruba language. Abiodun draws on his fluency and prodigious knowledge of Yoruba culture and language to dramatically enrich our understanding of Yoruba civilization and its arts. The book includes a companion website with audio clips of the Yoruba language, helping the reader better grasp the integral connection between art and language in Yoruba culture.

The purpose of this book is to excavate and recover a wealth of under-examined artworks and research materials directly to interrogate, debate and analyse the tangled skeins undergirding visual representations of transatlantic slavery across the Black diaspora. Living and working on both sides of the Atlantic, as these scholars, curators and practitioners demonstrate, African diasporic artists adopt radical and revisionist practices by which to confront the difficult aesthetic and political realities surrounding the social and cultural legacies let alone national and mythical memories of Transatlantic Slavery and the international Slave Trade. Adopting a comparative perspective, this book investigates the diverse body of works produced by black artists as these contributors come to grips with the ways in which their neglected and repeatedly unexamined similarities and differences bear witness to the existence of an African diasporic visual arts tradition. As in-depth investigations into the diverse resistance strategies at work within these artists' vast bodies of work testify, theirs is an ongoing fight for the right to art for art's sake as they challenge mainstream tendencies towards examining their works solely for their sociological and political dimensions. This book adopts a cross- cultural perspective to draw together artists, curators, academics, and public researchers in order to provide an interdisciplinary examination into the eclectic and experimental oeuvre produced by black artists working within the United States, the United Kingdom and across the African diaspora. The overall aim of this book is to re-examine complex yet under-researched theoretical paradigms vis-à-vis the patterns of influence and cross-cultural exchange across both America and a black diasporic visual arts tradition, a vastly neglected field of study.

World is Africa: Writings on Diaspora Art brings together more than 30 important texts by Eddie Chambers, who for several decades has been an original and a critical voice within the field of African diaspora art history. The texts range from book chapters and catalogue essays, to shorter texts including an op-ed and an afterword. Chambers focuses on contemporary artists and their practices, from a range of international locations, who for the most part are identified with the African diaspora. The book will be a valuable and important contribution to the emerging discipline of black British art history in particular, as well as the broader field of African diaspora studies. None of the texts brought together are available online and none of them, until now, have been available outside of the original publication in which they first appeared. The volume contains several substantive new pieces of writing, one of which reflects on the patronage of the Greater London Council (GLC) extended to a number of Black artists in 1980s London. Another text considers the art world 'fetishisation' of the 1980s as the latest manifestation of a field reluctant to accept the majority of Black British artists as valid individual practitioners in their own right. Another new text introduces readers to the little-known record sleeve and book jacket illustrations of Charles White, the American artist who was the subject of a major retrospective in 2018 at major galleries across the US - Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The other new text re-examines the 'map paintings' of Frank Bowling, the Guyana-born artist who was the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Britain. Chambers provides a compelling commentary on work by a number of important artists, written at various stages of their careers. Together, the range of texts in World is Africa amount to a convincing and engaging overview of rarely-considered narratives relating to artists of the Africa diaspora. As such, the book will be a valuable and important contribution to the emerging discipline of black British art history in particular, as well as the broader field of African diaspora studies and African diaspora art history