This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019), the first African and Black curator and director of documenta11 (2002) and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). The articles and personal tributes collected here recognize the profound impact left by the Nigerian art historian, curator, poet, and educator who transformed the curatorial present of global exhibitions and anticipated their decolonizing futures. Enwezor created political platforms and artistic manifestos that not only changed the form and function of global exhibitions, but also opened up new ways to align activism with aesthetic practices, performative displays, and curatorial initiatives. Contributors-art historians and critics, curators, and artists-address how Enwezor's approach to the exhibition as a "space of public discourse" intersects with theories of affect, indigeneity, race, queer studies, and feminism. Contributors: David Adjaye, Hoor Al Qasimi, Natasha Becker, Naomi Beckwith, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jody B. Cutler-Bittner, Jane Chin Davidson, Shane Doyle, Tamar Garb, Kendell Geers, Salah M. Hassan, Amelia G. Jones, Abdellah Karroum, Monique Kerman, Mohammed Ibrahim Mahama, Julie Mehretu, Susette S. Min, Wangechi Mutu, Sabine Dahl Nielsen, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Alpesh Kantilal Patel, Anne Ring Petersen, Yinka Shonibare, Penny Siopis, Mary Ellen Strom, Przemyslaw Strozek, Mikhael Subotzky

This anthology, Storytellers of Art Histories, gives voice to those who are reshaping art histories: not only art historians and curators, but also archivists and artists. There is a special focus on gender, race (including Whiteness), class, sexuality and transnationality - all of which are often marginalized in dominant art histories. Each of the contributors in this book has provided short, often very personal, contributions describing how they began to become passionate about their practice. A particular feature of the collection is that there are twice as many contributions by women than by men. The contributors respond in a multitude of surprising ways, appealing equally to people enmeshed in the field through their work and to those simply interested in the field. The stories you will read take various forms - a letter written to a friend, a revisioned grant application, the pastiche of image and text, children's fables, interviews, co-authored narrative, memoir, manifesto, apology. A number of the essays perform, through a combination of recollected early memory alongside scholarly research, the roots of the theories they explore through publishing, curating and archival work. Many of the contributors embody overlapping cultural diasporas that suggest the porousness of borders, challenging the field to understand itself as a product of regional art histories. Collecting this range of narratives born from different workplaces and disciplines speaks to our belief in the potential boundlessness of the art histories that shape the stories we consume. Storytellers of Art Histories brings together the first-person narratives of an international group of art historians, curators, artists and archivists. This much-needed book book fills a significant gap in the literature, showing how these practitioners' works come together productively in the teaching and writing of art history. The anthology also illuminates the relationship between curatorial studies and art history. Primary readership will include artists, art historians, archivists, curators and educators. It will be a useful resource for educators and students connected with undergraduate courses in art history, contemporary art history and curatorial and museum studies.

This title sets out to write new transnational South Asian art histories - to make visible histories of artworks that remain marginalised within the discipline of art history. However, this is done through a deliberate 'productive failure' - specifically, by not upholding the strictly genealogical approach that is regularly assumed for South Asian art histories. For instance, one chapter explores the abstract work of Cy Twombly and Natvar Bhavsar. The author examines 'whiteness', the invisible ground upon which racialized art histories often pivot, as a fraught yet productive site for writing art history. This book also provides original commentary on how queer theory can deconstruct and provide new approaches for writing art history. Overall, this title provides methods for generating art history that acknowledge the complex web of factors within which art history is produced and the different forms of knowledge-production we might count as art history. -- .