ARTH591, Dana Rush: Seminar in African Art: Modern and Contemporary (client-driven) African Art

Wednesdays, 3:00-5:50 p.m. Art and Design 315

*although listed as Independent Readings, this class may count as a graduate seminar.

This seminar will explore the predicament of “modern” and “contemporary” client-driven African art from the 1960s to the present. We shall discuss the inevitable issues of marginalizations; the Western perceptions of “Africanness” and “authenticity,” as well as charged and contested tags of “traditional,” “modern,” “urban,” “international,” and “contemporary.” The main struggle contemporary (global) African artists face is not Western resistance to African difference, but rather a Western obsession with and insistence upon difference. Why does the contemporary art market perpetuate “exoticism”? What can be done? Can an artist born in Africa make “contemporary art,” or must his/her work have a direct reference to Africa, whether fictive or not? How then do the fictions of “Africa” play out in the contemporary art world? What strategies must contemporary artists from Africa employ to transcend this predicament? Contemporary African diaspora art and artists will also be discussed. Requirements: weekly readings and reactions, research paper, and presentation.