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Africa Server Magazine
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- Special: ZAM zomer 2010
- Special: Contemporary African Art since 1980 - lecture by Okwui Enwezor
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Contemporary African Art - a lecture by Okwui Enwezor
Earlier this year, Nigeria-bron art historian and curator Okwui Enwezor held a lecture in Amsterdam to present Contemporary African Art since 1980, written by him and Chika Okeke-Agulu. The book is the first major overview on African art and artists from the last three decades.
In the lecture Okwui Enwezor adhered to the structure of the book, starting with a theoretical underpinning of the study of contemporary African art as a disciplinairy field and a demarcation of this field. He then went on to provide some insight on the relationship between the museum of art and the museum of ethnography before turning to a presentation of works of art from the three decades presented in the book.
This is not a completely literal rendition of the lecture. We have left out references to persons present and other events on the day itself. In some places we have slightly edited the text for purposes of readability.
Almost all illustrations included in this Africaserver Special are taken from the over one hundred pictures Okui Enwezor presented on the night, those in their turn selected from the 400 illustrations in the book (those of course being of much higher quality than the internet allows us to present). We mainly selected reprensentations of works of art Okwui Enwezor commented on during the lecture.
27 Apr. 2010
This book is not mine. It is a book written with a dear colleague. It is one of many collaborations I have had with Chika Okeke-Agulu, who is an art historian at Princeton University in New Jersey, but an art historian whose specialisation within the department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University is on modern and contemporary African art.
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27 Apr. 2010
One immediate point this project seeks to reaffirm lies in its title. It suggests with specificity, that there exists an artistic landscape of some coherence, and of discernible durability, which justifies the label, as to be applied to the works of artists grouped under the various thematic rubrics that inform the sections of the book.
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27 Apr. 2010
In this sense, there are two distinct structures of analysis, of articulation regarding the last thirty years that we engage. And this is the discursive argument, or the intellectual argument, between the museum of ethnography and the museum of art.
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27 Apr. 2010
Why did we take 1980 as the point of departure? 1980 for us is a frame of reference and I will give you a very short synopsis for its reasons. Most general histories of contemporary African art begin from the fifties and the sixties.
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27 Apr. 2010
The nineties for us were really marked by this massive exodus of intellectuals and artists, migration. This search for new frontiers, for new places of comfort, of production, of protection, exile and all of that.
This period also marks the articulation of the spaces of the city, if you will.
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27 Apr. 2010
Ghada Amer, another work by El Anatsui, Yto Barrada, Julie Mehretu, a much younger artist. Then an older and much more established artist, much more frequently part of the public discussion, Georges Adéagbo, again talking about this tension between tradition and modernity, the archives of tradition if you will (1). Bodo. Ingrid Mwangi, a German-Kenyan artist (2).
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27 Apr. 2010
More information on Contemporary African Art since 1980, the authors Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, and the lecture Okwui Enwezor held in Amsterdam.
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