Research Catalog

Title

Second careers : two tributaries in African art / Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi.

Author

Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C.

Publication

• Cleveland, OH : Cleveland Museum of Art, [2019]
• New Haven, CT : Yale University Press.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Griswold, William
• Cleveland Museum of Art, issuing body, host institution.

Description

128 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color map; 31 cm

Summary

An important investigation of the complicated relationship between canonical African art and the practices of contemporary African artists. Recognizing the second lives of historical African artworks when they enter museum collections and addressing them in dialogue with the works of six established and emerging African artists, this book represents how today's practitioners are reformulating the continent's artistic traditions to respond to the contemporary landscape. Historically, African art objects such as masks and sculptures were composed of a matrix of materials that included medicine bundles, raffia assemblage, hides, and metal, some or all of which were repurposed: a "second career" for the materials. This practice of transforming materials has wider cultural resonance in Africa today, where electronics, discarded engines, and rubber tires are incorporated by artisans into domestic and personal items. The contemporary African artists featured here-El Anatsui (Ghana), Nnenna Okore (Nigeria), Zohra Opoku (Ghana), Elias Sime (Ethiopia), Tahir Carl Karmali (Kenya), and Goncalo Mabunda (Mozambique)-reflect these dual traditions, reviving conceptual elements of historical African art by creating work that responds to the evolution of Africa's artistic traditions.

Subject

• Art, African > Exhibitions
• Artists > Africa > Exhibitions
• Art objects, African > Exhibitions
• Material culture > Africa > Exhibitions
• Material culture
• Artists
• Art objects, African
• Art, African
• Africa
• Western, Non-Western (Traditional/Native Arts), Africa, Non-Western in a Western Style Several Media

Genre/Form

Exhibition catalogs.

Note

• "Published on the occasion of the exhibition Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art, July 11 to November 29, 2020, at the Cleveland Museum of Art."--Title page verso.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 120-121) and index.

Language (note)

• In English.

Contents

Director's foreword / William M. Griswold -- Acknowledgments -- Map of Africa -- Second careers : introduction -- Museums and African art -- Contemporary artists and historical practices in the arts of Africa -- Plates -- Interviews. El Anatsui ; Tahir Carl Karmali ; Nnenna Okore ; Zohra Opoku ; Elias Sime -- Artists' biographies.

Call Number

Sc G 21-1

ISBN

• 0300246870
• 9780300246872

LCCN

2019944452

OCLC

1090438741

Author

Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C., author.

Title

Second careers : two tributaries in African art / Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi.

Publisher

Cleveland, OH : Cleveland Museum of Art, [2019]

Distributor

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press.

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

still image

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 120-121) and index.

Language

In English.

Indexed Term

Western, Non-Western (Traditional/Native Arts), Africa, Non-Western in a Western Style Several Media

Local Subject

Black author.

Added Author

Griswold, William, writer of foreword.

Cleveland Museum of Art, issuing body, host institution.

Research Call Number

Sc G 21-1