African contemporary art and the curatorial turn
African contemporary art and the curatorial turn

Summary/Abstract: During the fifty year period of the second half of the 20th century the field of African Art History, as well as the forms of art studies and art exhibitions have changed considerably. This article considers the evolution of the idea of African identity in contemporary arts. I would like to examine the different forms of art representation and interviewing of African fine arts in the last three decades. In order to illustrate the dynamic changes in the European approach to African Art, it is simply enough to recall the famous remarks of Carl Einstein and Roy Sieber on that subject or William Rubin’s controversial exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1984). It seems that the visibly growing practice of engaging curators of African origin in the creation of exhibitions of modern African art, particularly as a strategy to incorporate the voices of those represented, is one of the most important aspects of the “curatorial turn” of the 21st century.

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