DEKAT DIGITAL 2019 - 2020

Olu Oguibe wrote his own textbook, The Culture Game (2004, University
of Minnesota Press), for one of his courses at the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, because Contemporary African Art has only fairly recently
become a field of study. But on the academic conference circuit, the
notion of Contemporary African Art is better explored, and scholarly
presentations and papers are adding to the rapidly growing archive of
research. Noteworthy publications include Reading the Contemporary:
African Art from Theory to the Market Place (1999, Institute of International
Visual Arts, edited by Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor), Antinomies of
Art and Culture; Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity (2008, Duke
University Press, edited by Okwui Enwezor, Nancy Condee and Terry Smith) and most recently, Former West:
Art and the Contemporary After 1989 (2016, BAK, by Maria-Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou).
The Goethe Institute has played an important role in the advancement of critical and intellectual thinking about
Contemporary African Art and three major publications have been initiated by this organisation: Positions:
Contemporary Artists in South Africa (2010), Über(w)unden: Art in Troubled Times (2012) and African Futures:
Thinking about the Future in Word and Image (2016). The latter is particularly insightful about the different
genres of Contemporary African Art, including, for example, graphic science fiction novels/comics set in
the distant future in Cairo; music videos with singers dressed in what can only be described as a fusion of
traditional and contemporary Zimbabwean dress; performance art pieces that are closely aligned to traditional
masquerades; and contemporary African fashion design and photography. Another noteworthy publication is
Ashraf Jamal’s In the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art (2017, Skira).
Academic and popular journals are growing the body of published scholarship. They include Nka: Journal of
Contemporary African Art, Third Text, Art Africa, and Diptyk: Art from Africa and the Arab World. Independent
projects such as Corrigall & Co’s research reports – A Decade of Curating (2018) and The Top 50 Artists and
the Top 20 Curators who Validated Them (2019) – add significantly to our understanding of what they call
the ‘Contemporary African Art Ecology’. The ArtTactic Market Analysis reports on the performance of modern
and contemporary African artists in the auction market from 2016 to 2019, and Hans Ulrich Obrist’s ongoing
research project, 89+, is also making a significant contribution.
Leading auctioneers have added Contemporary African Art to their sales and Sotheby’s regularly sell work by
artists such as William Kentridge, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Chéri Samba, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Ben Enwonwu,
El Anatsui, Julie Mehretu, Yinka Shonibare, Chris Ofili and Wangechi Mutu, as does Bonhams, London, in
its annual Africa Now sale. In South Africa, leading auction house Strauss & Co successfully launched a
Contemporary Art sale in February 2018 to coincide with the annual Cape Town Art Fair, and this initiative
grew in scope and value with the second iteration in 2019.
The depth of attention being paid to contemporary African art and the growing understanding of the phenomenon
is graphically illustrated by the new digital platform series initiated by Tate Modern, Yes, But Why? The first
episode, on Zanele Muholi, provides 10 unequivocal answers to why she is currently regarded as the most highly
rated contemporary artist: she was born at the height of apartheid in South Africa; she identifies as a visual
activist, rather than an artist; her work represents and empowers the LGBTQIA+ community; she creates grassroots
collectives to support the community; she photographs participants, not subjects; her early work creates a new
picture of lesbian identity; her work celebrates black skin; she creates powerful portraits, shot internationally; her
relationship with her mother is very important to her; and her practice is about inner and outer beauty.
Contemporary African Art has come a long way, exemplified by the manner in which the centre of Western Art now
acknowledges and celebrates art and artists from Africa. It has gained a strong identity over the past 30 years and the
art metropole is in all likelihood shifting from Paris, Berlin, London and New York to Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa
and Johannesburg. We look forward to a second generation of contemporary African artists, curators and scholars,
and a new wave of Contemporary African Art exhibitions, projects and publications, with excited anticipation.
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