Joshua Cohen's The “Black Art” Renaissance is a refreshing and thought-provoking study of African art in the modern world. Primarily concerned with the circulation of African art and ideas about Africa in the twentieth century, the case studies presented in this book will continue to inform our understanding of modernism for years to come. Cohen's research is found at the indistinct intersection of African and European art. From this vantage point, he indicates the concepts that have been used to distort African art by trapping it in a “methodological cul-de-sac where distinctions are out of reach because everything looks the same” (p. x). Static categories such as “primitivism” and art nègre are rightfully deconstructed and reconstructed to reveal the multivalent ways they were employed in different spaces. Next, Cohen unravels a transcontinental history of modernism to reveal complex networks of exchange between sculptural practices in Africa, the avant-garde in Europe,...
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Spring 2022
February 21 2022
The “Black Art” Renaissance: African Sculpture and Modernism Across Continents
The “Black Art” Renaissance: African Sculpture and Modernism Across Continents
by Joshua I.
Cohen
Oakland
: University of California Press
, 2020
. 304 pp., 83 color images, 18 b/w illustrations, bibliography, index. US$65, paperback
Chelsy Monie
Chelsy Monie
Chelsy Monie is an art history PhD student at Emory University. Her research focuses on African art and digital humanities. cmonie@emory.edu
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Chelsy Monie
Chelsy Monie is an art history PhD student at Emory University. Her research focuses on African art and digital humanities. cmonie@emory.edu
Online ISSN: 1937-2108
Print ISSN: 0001-9933
© 2022 by the Regents of the University of California
2022
Regents of the University of California
African Arts (2022) 55 (1): 95–96.
Citation
Chelsy Monie; The “Black Art” Renaissance: African Sculpture and Modernism Across Continents. African Arts 2022; 55 (1): 95–96. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00645
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