South Africa: The Art of a Nation

The weight of South Africa's turbulent and violent past often determines the narrative scope of present scholarship. South Africa: The Art of a Nation is a beautifully illustrated monograph published in conjunction with the British Museum's 2016–2017 exhibition of the same title. Co-curators of the exhibition John Giblin (head of the Africa collection at the British Museum) and Chris Spring (curator of contemporary African art and the eastern and southern African collections at the British Museum) co-wrote the catalogue. The catalogue provides the breadth that is usually associated with textbooks, but also contributes to ongoing scholarly debates. The ambitious scope does not hinder the depth of analysis that extends through all seven chapters. This feat is accomplished by way of the effective and creatively structured chapters, which move chronologically, but also incorporate a thematic call-and-response between the earliest forms of South African art (ca. 3,000,000 bp) and modern and...