[S]urvey 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.... Organized in chronological order, the book covers all major artistic mediums: painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, installation, drawing, collage.... Presents examples of ... work by more than 160 African artists.... [I]ncludes Georges Adeagbo Tayo Adenaike, Ghada Amer, El Anatsui, Kader Attia, Luis Basto, Candice Breitz, Moustapha Dimé, Marlene Dumas, Victor Ekpuk, Samuel Fosso, Jak Katarikawe, William Kentridge, Rachid Koraichi, Mona Mazouk, Julie Mehretu, Nandipha Mntambo, Hassan Musa, Donald Odita, Iba Ndiaye, Richard Onyango, Ibrahim El Salahi, Issa Samb, Cheri Samba, Ousmane Sembene, Yinka Shonibare, Barthelemy Toguo, Obiora Udechukwu, and Sue Williamson.--From publisher description..

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

Against the musty stereotypes and prejudices that still consider Africa a dark continent full of nameless, Third World nations always striving but never managing to catch up with the West, Authentic/Ex-Centric positions Africa as the source of many of the ideas associated with European modernism. From Cubism's radical abstraction to 70s performance art and its use of ritual, shamanism, and magic, the influence of African art has long been underap-preciated. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name held to critical acclaim on the fringes of the 2001 Venice Biennale, Authentic/Ex-centric offers a glimpse of the ways in which African and African and African Diaspora artists have interpreted and translated the aesthetic and social experiences of post-colonial Africa into new idioms of artistic expression, and argues for their proper location in the broad narrative of global conceptualism. Including work by such artists as Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Willem Boshoff, Godfried Donkor, Rachid Koraichi, Berni Searle, and Yinka Shonibare.

In recent years Africa's booming art scene has gained substantial global attention, with a growing number of international exhibitions and a stronger-than-ever presence on the art market worldwide. Here, for the first time, is the most substantial survey to date of modern and contemporary African-born or Africa-based artists. Working with a panel of experts, this volume builds on the success of Phaidon's bestselling Great Women Artists in re-writing a more inclusive and diverse version of art history.

This stunning catalog to an important exhibition presents the work of some of the most acclaimed contemporary African artists, examining their relationship with various aspects of the African environment. The definition of a new African artist is as broad and diverse as the continent itself; and the stories these artists tell are at once uplifting and devastating, as are their nations' histories. This book focuses on the impact of the environment on contemporary African life and the use of found objects and appropriated materials in current African art. Artists from the oil-rich Niger Delta create images of the region's ecological destruction, impoverishment, and despair. Works from the Congo and South Africa depict abandoned mines and convict labour. Also included are El Anatsui's constructs made from bottle caps and wire and Romuald Hazoumé's clever masks, pieced together from discarded cans and obsolete telephone parts. Together these artists have created a multidimensional portrait of a continent with rich cultures, multiple challenges, and a creative and resourceful population of inspiring artists. AUTHOR Lisa Aronson is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Skidmore College. John S. Weber is Dayton Director of the Tang Museum and Professor of Liberal Studies at Skidmore College. ILLUSTRATIONS: 85 colour