Africa, the Art of a Continent

Inspired by a landmark exhibition of art on view at the Guggenheim Museum, this book provides an accessible overview to one of the world's great art traditions. Africa is the birthplace of human civilization, and produced some of humankind's earliest art objects. This book presents masterworks organized into seven geographical areas - Ancient Egypt and Nubia, eastern Africa, southern Africa, central Africa, western Africa and the Guinea Coast, Sahel and Savanna, and northern Africa. Spectacular sculptures in wood, bronze, and stone provide stunning proof of the aesthetic strength of African traditions, even in the case of utilitarian works that were not made to be "art". In some cases, the very concept of art was foreign to their makers, as Kwame Anthony Appiah explains in his essay. In an epic overview of Africa's earliest history, Ekpo Eyo makes a strong case for dispensing with the popular misconception that northern Africa - northwestern Africa and Egypt - is somehow not an integral part of the African continent. Peter Mark addresses the religious and cultural interaction between northern and sub-Saharan Africa during the spread of Islam and Christianity. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores the reception of African art in the West in the early part of this century, outlining how these works - like most everything from Africa - provoked "a certain anxiety" in the Western imagination. Suzanne Preston Blier elucidates the myths surrounding the art of Africa. And an international team of scholars explores the significance of each of the objects reproduced. The volume is rounded off with a selected bibliography.