African Art: From Traditional to the Contemporary

3 units

This course is designed to engage the broad diversity of art in Africa and African artistic consciousness and aesthetics from early rock paintings of the San Art Movement to the present. However, the organizing principle is not a time-bound system of development in the Western sense, but instead hinges on an engagement of particular aesthetic trajectories that embody specific cultural concerns. The goals of the course are to expand students' understanding of African Art in the context of African history and cultural values; to introduce students to non-western concepts of time, metaphysics and the notion of art itself; to explore the notion of the Classical in a non-western context; to relate artistic movements in Africa to movements in other parts of the world; and to gain a comprehensive understanding of artistic production in conversation with historic cycles and events.