benin bronzes is the earliest known form of african art.
benin bronzes is the earliest known form of african art.
the earliest known form of african art is?
benin bronzes
the origins of african art lie long before recorded history. african rock art in the sahara in niger preserves 6000-year-old carvings. along with sub-saharan africa, the western cultural arts, ancient egyptian paintings and artifacts, and indigenous southern crafts also contributed greatly to african art. often depicting the abundance of surrounding nature, the art was often abstract interpretations of animals, plant life, or natural designs and shapes. the nubian kingdom of kush in modern sudan was in close and often hostile contact with egypt, and produced monumental sculpture mostly derivative of styles that did not lead to the north. in west africa, the earliest known sculptures are from the nok culture which thrived between 500 bc and 500 ad in modern nigeria, with clay figures typically with elongated bodies and angular shapes.
african art
a commonality to all these categorizations is their reliance on dichotomies between art and craft, europe and africa, urban and rural, and traditional and contemporary. these dichotomies tend to consider mutual influences in african and european art as an exception rather than the norm. even more, they fail to think of african art independent from europe as its counterpart or "influence", resulting in a frequent reproach of african artists "copycatting" or "mimicking" european achievements of modernism. such eurocentric attitudes have been revealingly criticized by theorists such as olu oguibe, rasheed araeen, nkiru nzegwu, okwui enwezor or salah hassan. this problem is not easy to solve, and in some cases it is tackled by simply subverting any attempt of categorization. "seven stories about modern art in africa", directed by clémentine deliss and curated by chika okeke-agulu, salah hassan, david koloane, wanjiku nyachae and el hadji sy (london, 1995) is a case in point. rather than grafting binary taxonomies, it narrated seven modern art histories in different parts of africa by invited curators and artists who were familiar with these recent histories and their respective art scenes. the exhibition proved to offer a highly complex, historically informed and well-researched presentation. another example for subverting binary taxonomies is the book "contemporary african art after 1980" by okwui enwezor and chika okeke-agulu. rather than putting contemporary african art in relation to western traditions, they contrast it with modern african art, in that it defies linear grand narratives of modernism and is radically postcolonial. "[f]irst, within categories of time, it is neither belated nor does it exist out of time; second, because it is post-historical, it did not emerge out of a succession of historical styles; third, because it is critical of colonial valorization of an authentic past, it is postcolonial; and fourth, in relation to its post-colonialism, it seeks, according to hans belting’s thesis, to be post-ethnic […]. neither being out of time nor belated, contemporary african art strategically inhabits a third epistemological space by being in time." as they add, this being "fundamentally of its time" counts for all contemporary art, not only the african. in their book, enwezor and okeke-agulu discuss contemporary african art by its approaches and guiding topics rather than trying to define categories on the basis of styles, markets or traditions. their chapters therefore are designated as "between postcolonial utopia and postcolonial realism", "networks of practice" in the globalized field of cultural production, "politics, culture and critique", "archive, document, memory", "abstraction, figuration and subjectivity" and "the body politic: difference, gender, sexuality". doing so, they locate contemporary african art within a historical perspective, something that had largely missed in previous discussions.
contemporary african art