1st Edition
The Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History
This is an authoritative companion that is global in scope, recognizing the presence of African Diaspora artists across the world. It is a bold and broad reframing of this neglected branch of art history, challenging dominant presumptions about the field.
Diaspora pertains to the global scattering or dispersal of, in this instance, African peoples, as well as their patterns of movement from the mid twentieth century onwards. Chapters in this book emphasize the importance of cross-fertilization, interconnectedness, and intersectionality in the framing of African Diaspora art history. The book stresses the complexities of artists born within, or living and working within, the African continent, alongside the complexities of Africa-born artists who have migrated to other parts of the world. The group of international contributors emphasizes and accentuates the interplay between, for example, Caribbean art and African Diaspora art, or Latin American art and African Diaspora art, or Black British art and African Diaspora art.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in art history, the various branches of African studies, African American studies, African Diaspora studies, Caribbean studies, and Latin American studies.
Introduction: Diaspora, as Far as Your Eyes Can See
Eddie Chambers
SECTION I
Routes and Roots of Global African Diaspora Art History
1. Stuart Hall and the Framing of Diaspora
Margaret T. Andrews
2. Towards a History of LGBTQ+ Contemporary African Art
Roderick A. Ferguson
3. The Diasporic Dimensions of the Harlem Renaissance
Anna Arabindan-Kesson
4. To Risk the Sovereignty of Our Own Stories
Yasmine Espert
5. Édouard Glissant and the Framing of Diaspora
Sam Coombes
6. HERE and HERE: ÀSÌKÒ and Beyond
Tamar Garb
7. South Africa: Destination and Point of Origin
Greer Valley
8. From Post-Black to the Afropolitan: The Studio Museum’s ‘F-Shows’ and Discourses on Black Art
Allison Young
9. African and Afrodescendant Art Production in Latin America: Research Challenges and Possibilities
Alejandro de la Fuente and Thomas B.F. Cummins
10. The Global Africa Project: Diasporic Connections, Explorations, and Interactions
Lowery Stokes Sims and Leslie King Hammond
SECTION II
Routes and Roots of African Diaspora Art History in Europe
11. “[T]heir Own Kind of Light”: Black Diasporic Consciousness in the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-1972)
Maryam Ohadi Hamadani
12. A History of Black Diaspora Artists in Italy
Tenley Bick
13. Indivisible or Invisible: Contemporary Artists of African Descent and French Multiculturalism
Monique Kerman
14. A History of Black Diaspora Artists in Germany
Ingrid von Rosenberg
15. A Short History of Artists of African Descent in Scandinavia
Monica L. Miller
16. Contemporary African Art and Artists in Belgium
Hugo DeBlock
17. A History of Black Diaspora Artists in Scotland
Catherine Spencer
18. A History of Black Diaspora Artists in Spain
Carmen Fracchia
19. Transforming the Facade: Black American Artists at the US Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 1930–2022
Jessi DiTillio
20. East African, South Asian, British Artists
Alice Correia
SECTION III
Hemispheric Dimensions of African Diaspora Art History
21. Cartographies of Kinship in the Caribbean Festival of Arts
Adrienne Rooney
22. Where Caribbean Art Ends and Latin American Art Begins
Tatiana Flores
23. Art Biennales in Africa and the Making of African Diaspora Art History: Perspectives from the Dak’Art Biennale
Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi
24. Visualizing Historical and Contemporary African Diasporas: A Perspective from the Dakar Biennial
Sabrina Moura
25. Drawing Cuba into African Diaspora Art History
Paul Niell
26. Thinking Together: The Maghreb and African Diaspora Art History
Emma Chubb
27. Deconstructing the Archival Impulse in Contemporary Maghrebi Diasporic Praxis
Nancy Demerdash
28. Absented Presence: Canadian Dimensions of African Diasporic Art History
Pamela Edmonds
29. Afro-Brazilian Art in Transit: Abdias do Nascimento’s Visual-Arts Work from Rio de Janeiro to New York City
Abigail Lapin Dardashti
30. Curating African/Black Atlantic Art: Dimensions in Black Art and Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent
Henry John Drewal
SECTION IV
African Diaspora Art History: Scholars at Work: Art Historians, Museum and Gallery Curators, Pedagogy, and Archives
31. Claiming Space: The Caribbean’s (Counter-)Curatorial Interventions
Veerle Poupeye
32. X as Intersection: AfroLatinx Art
Adriana Zavala
33. Celebrations of Diaspora: The Work of FESTAC ‘77
Lindsay J. Twa
34. Went Looking for Africa”: Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and Artistic Travels in Africa
Daniel Haxall
35. Un-Doing Belonging: Mobilizing African Diaspora Art in the Art History Classroom
Deniz Sözen
36. Being Seen: An Art History of the Blackness of Technology
Megan Driscoll
37. Image Made Flesh: Black Representation, Material Archives and Contemporary Desire
Erica Moiah James
38. Edson Chagas’ Photographic Realism
Serubiri Moses
39. Glitter and Grit: Michèle Pearson Clarke’s Black Queer Unreason
Joana Joachim
40. Pedagogical Challenges, Pedagogical Approaches: Contemporary Art from Africa and Its Diaspora: The Analytical Tools
Bolaji Campbell
Conclusion: Diaspora Writ Large: María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Julie Mehretu, and Wangechi Mutu
Uchenna Itam
Biography
Eddie Chambers holds the David Bruton, Jr. Centennial Professorship in Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.