Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria - Hardcover

Okeke-Agulu, Chika

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822357321 ISBN 13: 9780822357322

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2015

Synopsis

Written by one of the foremost scholars of African art and featuring 129 color images, Postcolonial Modernism chronicles the emergence of artistic modernism in Nigeria in the heady years surrounding political independence in 1960, before the outbreak of civil war in 1967. Chika Okeke-Agulu traces the artistic, intellectual, and critical networks in several Nigerian cities. Zaria is particularly important, because it was there, at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, that a group of students formed the Art Society and inaugurated postcolonial modernism in Nigeria. As Okeke-Agulu explains, their works show both a deep connection with local artistic traditions and the stylistic sophistication that we have come to associate with twentieth-century modernist practices. He explores how these young Nigerian artists were inspired by the rhetoric and ideologies of decolonization and nationalism in the early- and mid-twentieth century and, later, by advocates of negritude and pan-Africanism. They translated the experiences of decolonization into a distinctive "postcolonial modernism" that has continued to inform the work of major Nigerian artists.

About this title

About the Author:

Chika Okeke-Agulu is an artist, curator, and Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Archaeology and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. He is a coauthor of Contemporary African Art since 1980 and coeditor (with Okwui Enwezor and Salah M. Hassan) of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, also published by Duke University Press.

Review:

"In this work of prodigious scholarship, Chika Okeke-Agulu draws on a trove of previously unexamined archival resources and subjects the artistic and literary production of Nigeria's pioneer modernists to critical analysis. Redirecting our understanding of the modern art movement in Nigeria, his book will interest a broad range of scholars, including those studying comparative modernism, global art, visual culture, history, and literature. This groundbreaking work affirms Okeke-Agulu as a rigorous critical thinker and interdisciplinary scholar." (Salah M. Hassan, Goldwin Smith Professor, Department of History of Art and Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University)

"With this impressive book, Chika Okeke-Agulu has written an expansive, incisive, and dazzling account of the production of a new spirit of postcolonial artistic modernity in Nigeria at the denouement of colonialism in the 1950s. Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria is perhaps the most important book of its kind to appear in years. In succinct and lucid language, and lavishly illustrated pages, it offers a vigorous analysis of the artistic forces that lend a new understanding of the complex formations of global art history." (Okwui Enwezor, Director, Haus der Kunst, Munich)

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0822357321
• ISBN 13: 9780822357322
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 376