Journal of Art Historiography (Jun 2020)
The pathfinder paradox: historicizing African art within global modernity . Review of: Chika Okeke-Agulu, Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in 20th Century Nigeria. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015
Abstract
The increasing global visibility of modern and contemporary African art makes it imperative to determine how art history frames the emergent subject/context. How do emergent theories and analyses of modern/contemporary African art position Africa within global debates about cultural production in general? How do scholars narrate a history of modern and contemporary art in Africa that unfolds from the viewpoint of the African subject / subjectivity rather than from the viewpoint of its negation by Western discourse? What approaches to historical data and interpretation are suitable for such analysis and what kind of art history does it produce? I use Chika Okeke-Agulu’s Postcolonial Modernism to evaluate these issues in relation to the politics of academic writing.
