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A concise, accessible and up-to-date overview of the arts of Africa
from prehistoric times to the present day. This indispensable
introductory guide explores the art of the African continent from
its early origins over 150,000 years ago to the contemporary, set
in the context of post-colonial debates, the restitution of
cultural objects and artefacts, and the challenges of the present.
This enormous and complex field of study, once under-appreciated by
the Western art world, is now of global importance and an essential
subject of education in art history. For ease of reference and
analysis, this indispensable guide is structured chronologically
into manageable and meaningful chapters covering ancient art, the
Middle Ages, travel and trade, encounters with Europe in the age of
exploration, the colonial era, the rebuilding of the continent in
recent times, and contemporary art. It addresses core,
continent-wide themes in African visual and cultural expression,
from the life-cycle (motherhood, children, initiation, religion) to
the body and representations of power dynamics. Important regional
artistic expressions are also explored, such as the cultures of
Mali (the Western Sudan), Nigeria (the lower Niger and Benue area),
the Congo Basin and various nomadic populations across the
continent. Written from an inclusive modern perspective, focusing
not only on royal traditions but also the broader global history of
the continent and its artistic practices, this is an excellent
introduction for students, museum visitors and anyone with an
interest in fine art, African history and cultural studies.
This catalogue documents the exhibition Art of Jazz, a
collaborative installation at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of
African & African American Art with one section ("Form")
installed at the Harvard Art Museum. The book explores the
intersection of the visual arts and jazz music, and presents a
visual feast of full color plates of artworks, preceded by a series
of essays. "Form," curated by Suzanne Preston Blier and David
Bindman in the teaching gallery of the Harvard Art Museum, ushers
in a dialogue between visual representation and jazz music,
showcasing artists' responses to jazz. "Performance," also curated
by Blier and Bindman, guides us through a rich collection of books,
album covers, photographs, and other ephemera installed at the
Cooper Gallery. "Notes," curated by Cooper Gallery director Vera
Ingrid Grant, fills five of the gallery's curatorial spaces with
contemporary art that illustrates how late twentieth- and early
twenty-first century artists hear, view, and engage with jazz.
Visual artists represented in "Form" include Matisse, Jackson
Pollock, Romare Bearden, and Stuart Davis. "Performance" includes
art by Hugh Bell, Carl Van Vechten, and Romare Bearden; additional
album cover art by Joseph Albers, Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol, and the
Fisk Jubilee Singers; and posters and photographs of Josephine
Baker and Lena Horne. "Notes" includes art by Cullen Washington,
Norman Lewis, Walter Davis, Lina Viktor, Petite Noir, Ming Smith,
Richard Yarde, Christopher Myers, Whitfield Lovell, and Jason
Moran.
In this book, Suzanne Preston Blier examines the intersection of
art, risk and creativity in early African arts from the Yoruba
center of Ife and the striking ways that ancient Ife artworks
inform society, politics, history and religion. Yoruba art offers a
unique lens into one of Africa's most important and least
understood early civilizations, one whose historic arts have long
been of interest to local residents and Westerners alike because of
their tour-de-force visual power and technical complexity. Among
the complementary subjects explored are questions of art making,
art viewing and aesthetics in the famed ancient Nigerian
city-state, as well as the attendant risks and danger assumed by
artists, patrons and viewers alike in certain forms of subject
matter and modes of portrayal, including unique genres of body
marking, portraiture, animal symbolism and regalia. This volume
celebrates art, history and the shared passion and skill with which
the remarkable artists of early Ife sought to define their past for
generations of viewers.
Blier illuminates the extraordinary architecture of the Batammaliba
people of Western Africa, revealing these buildings as texts
through which we can read the beliefs, psychology, traditions, and
social concerns of their inhabitants. In doing so, she explores the
role of vernacular architecture as an expression of culture.
"A splendid analysis of the centrality of architecture in the daily
lives of the Batammaliba and its integral role in articulating
social values....The story is beautifully told in the best of
anthropological traditions."--Judith R. Blau, "Contemporary
Society"
"A remarkable study....Blier's volume carries the study of African
architecture to a qualitatively new level of scholarship. It
introduces a new dimension whereby the architectural medium can be
used to illuminate much of the entire belief system of any
culture."--Labelle Prussin, "African Arts"
"In this excellent book Blier provides a richly detailed and
searching account of what architecture means to the Batammaliba of
northern Togo and Benin....The finest account I have yet read of
the relations between systems of beliefs, ritual practices, and
African aesthetics and plastic arts....The ethnography and basic
insight should be the envy of any social anthropologist."--T.O.
Beidelman, "Man"
In Picasso's Demoiselles, eminent art historian Suzanne Preston
Blier uncovers the previously unknown history of Pablo Picasso's
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, one of the twentieth century's most
important, celebrated, and studied paintings. Drawing on her
expertise in African art and newly discovered sources, Blier reads
the painting not as a simple bordello scene but as Picasso's
interpretation of the diversity of representations of women from
around the world that he encountered in photographs and sculptures.
These representations are central to understanding the painting's
creation and help identify the demoiselles as global figures,
mothers, grandmothers, lovers, and sisters, as well as part of the
colonial world Picasso inhabited. Simply put, Blier fundamentally
transforms what we know about this revolutionary and iconic work.
The Image of the Black in African and Asian Art asks how the black
figure was depicted by artists from the non-Western world.
Beginning with ancient Egypt-positioned properly as part of African
history-this volume focuses on the figure of the black as rendered
by artists from Africa, East Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The
aesthetic traditions illustrated here are as diverse as the
political and social histories of these regions. From Igbo Mbari
sculptures to modern photography from Mali, from Indian miniatures
to Japanese prints, African and Asian artists portrayed the black
body in ways distinct from the European tradition, even as they
engaged with Western art through the colonial encounter and the
forces of globalization. This volume complements the vision of art
patrons Dominique and Jean de Menil who, during the 1960s, founded
an image archive to collect the ways that people of African descent
have been represented in Western art from the ancient world to
modern times. A half-century later, Harvard University Press and
the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
completed the historic publication of The Image of the Black in
Western Art-ten books in total-beginning with Egyptian antiquities
and concluding with images that span the twentieth century. The
Image of the Black in African and Asian Art reinvigorates the de
Menil family's original mission and reorients the study of the
black body with a new focus on Africa and Asia.
In Picasso's Demoiselles, eminent art historian Suzanne Preston
Blier uncovers the previously unknown history of Pablo Picasso's
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, one of the twentieth century's most
important, celebrated, and studied paintings. Drawing on her
expertise in African art and newly discovered sources, Blier reads
the painting not as a simple bordello scene but as Picasso's
interpretation of the diversity of representations of women from
around the world that he encountered in photographs and sculptures.
These representations are central to understanding the painting's
creation and help identify the demoiselles as global figures,
mothers, grandmothers, lovers, and sisters, as well as part of the
colonial world Picasso inhabited. Simply put, Blier fundamentally
transforms what we know about this revolutionary and iconic work.
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