Modern/Contemporary Art of Nigeria
and the African Diaspora

AAS 678

This seminar will examine modern and contemporary art of Nigeria, Africa, and the Africa Diaspora since the late 1950s. Its purpose is to open a lens to modern, colonial and postcolonial artists of Africa and the African Disapora, to give clarity to the critical interventions of artists/movement s that have made a significant impact in artworld systems over the last five decades. Though such developments are minimally known, largely in fragments, their impact is evident in museum collections, exhibitions, catalogues, and art historical texts of expanded discourse/s in art history and visual culture. Who were these artists? What were their styles, processes, motivations, philosophies, exhibitions, and strategies in the transnational exchanges of the African Diaspora and larger Western world? How are they to be understood in the history and theories of diaspora (Kim Butler, James Clifford), modernism and primitivism (Clement Greenberg, Hal Foster), and the new diaspora and gender art histories (Salah Hassan, Moyo Okediji, Nkiru Nzegwu, Judith Butler)? Such are the questions that guide the inquiry of this seminar. Students are required to participate in all discussions, write short critical responses to select readings, lead discussions, study selections in University art collections, produce a major paper or visual project.