Decolonizing African (hi)stories through visual arts: African contemporary art as a way of looking back and moving ahead

Abstract

Considered for a long time by the art world as “primitive,” African art has always been used by Africans as a way of telling the story of their time, of establishing a connection between the visible and the invisible, the here and the hereafter. With colonization and then Independence, the notion and forms of African art have evolved through complex and diverse encounters with modernity to a contemporary art form that reflects the multiple identities of the continent and its diasporas. While the notion of modern art was initially strongly influenced by the West, as evidenced by the first schools of arts established on the continent, it gradually asserted its place and identity as both universal and specific to the continent and its history. This (r)evolution is taking place through two parallel movements, both within and outside Africa, supported by the organization of major international and regional events and the establishment of dedicated art spaces in Africa and globally.