“No caminho das Estrelas”: How Socialism Created a Framework for the Emergence of Postindependence Modern Art in Angola

The emerging contemporary African art scenes that, since the 1990s, have become so visible in the global biennials, international art exhibitions, and auction houses are framed by specific historical paradigms. One of the most important moments of inflection for these art scenes was the liberation era and its implementation of cultural emancipation—often guided by government cultural policies that promoted selective ideas about the role of arts and culture within the newly liberated country and its society. These policies often aimed for cultural emancipation and the decolonization of aesthetic practices. Research on these processes, however, has tended to reflect the patterns of colonial distribution on the African continent—with little attention paid to the former Portuguese empire and the art scenes that emerged from it. More transcontinental, transnational, and transregional research that also crosses former colonial language borders is needed. This article, which is based on an extensive literature review, work in...