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general interest
Postcolonial Modernism
Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria
chika okeke-agulu
postcolonial modernism
art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria
Chika Okeke-a gulu
Written by one of the foremost
scholars of African art and
featuring over 125 color images,
Postcolonial Modernism chronicles
the emergence of artistic
modernism in Nigeria in the
heady years surrounding political
independence in 1960, before
the outbreak of civil war in 1967.
Chika Okeke-Agulu traces the
artistic, intellectual, and critical
networks in several Nigerian
cities. Zaria is particularly important,
because it was there, at the
Nigerian College of Arts, Science
and Technology, that a group of
students formed the Art Society
and inaugurated “postcolonial modernism” in Nigeria. As Okeke-Agulu explains,
their works show both a deep connection with local artistic traditions and the
stylistic sophistication that we have come to associate with twentieth-century
modernist practices. He explores how these young Nigerian artists were
inspired by the rhetoric and ideologies of decolonization and nationalism in
the early- and mid-twentieth century and, later, by advocates of negritude
and pan-Africanism. They translated the experiences of decolonization into
a distinctive “postcolonial modernism” that has continued to inform the work
of major Nigerian artists.
Chika Okeke-Agulu is an
artist, curator, and Associate
Professor in the Department
of Art & Archaeology
and the Center for African
American Studies at Princeton
University. He is a coauthor of
Photo ©Chika Okeke-Agulu
Contemporary African Art since
1980 and coeditor (with Okwui Enwezor and Salah M. Hassan)
of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, also published
by Duke University Press.
“With this impressive book, Chika Okeke-Agulu has written
an expansive, incisive, and dazzling account of the production
of a new spirit of postcolonial artistic modernity in Nigeria
at the denouement of colonialism in the 1950s. Postcolonial
Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century
Nigeria is perhaps the most important book of its kind
to appear in years. In succinct and lucid language, and on
lavishly illustrated pages, it offers a vigorous analysis of the
artistic forces that lend a new understanding of the complex
formations of global art history.”—OKWUI ENWEZOR,
Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich
“In this work of prodigious scholarship, Chika Okeke-Agulu draws on a trove of previously
unexamined archival resources and he subjects the artistic and literary production
of Nigeria’s pioneer modernists to critical analysis. Redirecting our understanding
of the modern art movement in Nigeria, his book will interest a broad range of
scholars, including those studying comparative modernism, global art, visual culture,
history, and literature. This groundbreaking work affirms Okeke-Agulu as a rigorous
critical thinker and interdisciplinary scholar.”—SALAH M. HASSAN, Goldwin Smith
Professor, Department of History of Art and Africana Studies and Research Center,
Cornell University
ART/AFRICAN STUDIES
January 376 pages, 129 color illustrations paper, 978–0–8223–5746–9, $29.95tr/£19.99 cloth, 978–0–8223–5732–2, $99.95/£65.00
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