Scholars of African art history are familiar with the value of revisiting existing research. Such reexaminations can offer new perspectives, employ updated methodologies, and reassess entrenched ideas. Returning to artists and communities ten, twenty, or sixty years after an initial analysis invites researchers to recognize distinct, or even sweeping, shifts to artistic production and the ideas it involves.1 Alternatively, my recent research shows that consistent fieldwork makes it possible to identify and analyze some of the numerous, seemingly minor decisions that generate the arts, specifically masquerade, over time. Given the collaborative nature of masquerade, organizers, patrons, and audiences negotiate what forms and practices are desirable and/or acceptable. As a result, refinements, reversals, and variances emerge and can (but don't always) accumulate enough to become conspicuous innovations to forms and practices. Noting a single instance of an unconventional masquerade form or practice can be edifying for the researcher. However, because...
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Winter 2020
October 01 2020
Incremental Shifts: The Contemporariness of Masquerade
Lisa Homann
Lisa Homann
Lisa Homann is an associate professor of art history at UNC Charlotte. She has authored numerous publications on aesthetics, performance, and artistic innovation in West African masquerades. [email protected]
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Lisa Homann
Lisa Homann is an associate professor of art history at UNC Charlotte. She has authored numerous publications on aesthetics, performance, and artistic innovation in West African masquerades. [email protected]
Online ISSN: 1937-2108
Print ISSN: 0001-9933
© 2020 by the Regents of the University of California.
2020
The Regents of the University of California
African Arts (2020) 53 (4): 38–45.
Citation
Lisa Homann; Incremental Shifts: The Contemporariness of Masquerade. African Arts 2020; 53 (4): 38–45. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00550
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