Art and Architecture in Postcolonial Africa

by Janet Berry Hess

Overview

The struggle of African nations to achieve independence from colonial rule was a momentous event in world history, and among the most influential features of the postcolonial independence era was the art and architecture that it produced. With decolonization, Africa was thrust into nation building and into the related process of negotiating its cultures, integrating modernism while simultaneously sustaining regional traditions, and thereby producing a uniquely transitional art.

This work examines the complexity of popular artistic culture in the era of African nationalism, with a special focus on the influential independence era in Ghana. Chapters One and Two consider the ideologies of the Convention People's Party and the National Liberation Movement in Ghana and their respective effects on artistic production. Chapters Three through Six discuss the relationship between architecture, museum exhibitions, and political displays and growing nationalist ideologies, revealing the extent to which African art continues to be a medium for political, social, and historical commentary. Chapter Seven investigates artistic practices associated with bodily expression and explores the manner in which these practices were influenced by postcolonial authority, while the final chapters focus on intangible forms of art, such as the communal performance, that characterize both African and diasporic art history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786420766
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/06/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Janet Berry Hess teaches African, African American, and American Indian culture and gender studies at the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies, Sonoma State University.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments      
Introduction     

1. Exhibiting Ghana: Display, Documentary, and Spectacle in Ghana     
2. Displaying Asante: Asante Ideology and Alternative Representations of the “Nation”     
3. Imagining Architecture: The Structure of Nationalism in Accra     
4. Imagining Architecture II: “Treasure Storehouses” and Constructions of Asante Hegemony     
5. Envisioning Ujamaa: Architecture in Dodoma and Dar Es Salaam     
6. Reversing the Gaze: Exhibition, Postapartheid Art and the Politics of Display     
7. Representations of the Body in Postcolonial Africa     
8. The Gaze, “Tradition,” and African Art History     
9. Envoi: Expressive Culture and Performativity in the Diaspora     

Conclusion     
Chapter Notes     
Bibliography     
Index