African Visual Cultures and Colonial Histories: An Expanding Field

This introduction has two aims: It provides an overview of this special issue's explorations of art produced in and emerging from colonial contexts, and it offers a case study in miniature on the issue's theme. I locate these articles within an expanding field of African art historical scholarship on colonial structures and their appendages (military, academic, commercial, or otherwise) as sources of pressures that impose, coerce, restrict, or provide opportunities for innovations by African artists. Africa's colonial histories span millennia and the breadth of the continent, from ancient Carthage in the continent's northern reaches and Omani imperialism in East Africa, to regional empires whose memories are preserved through the names of nations (Mali, Ghana, Zimbabwe), as well as empires now contained by nation-states (Benin, Ashanti, Bamum). The continent's imperial history also encompasses the apartheid system's colonization and resistance from within in South Africa; one of this issue's articles addresses artistry...