African Art: A User's Guide

3 units

This seminar offers an introduction to the methodologies of African art history, exploring a range of approaches to objects from an examination of their original contexts; accessed through oral and archival sources; to their lives in a Western context, including collecting histories and market valuation over time. It considers new means of knowing African objects through methods such as CT scanning and algorithm-based databases and poses the question: of what value is this corpus outside of art history or African studies? Through course meetings and projects, students will be introduced to various research methodologies, including the production of oral history records for the St. Louis Art Museum, provenance research, and valuation. The course will culminate in a final paper and presentation based on an object in SLAM's African collection. Prerequisites: Intro to Western Art (L01 113) or Intro to Modern Art (L01 215); one 300-level course in Art History preferred; or permission of instructor.