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Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscape

Gilane Tawadros and Sarah Campbell, Editors


Winner of the 2003 Arnold Rubin Book Award, Arts Council for the African Studies Association, US
''Fault Lines catapults the contemporary arts of Africa into a global arena. With the accelerating interest in contemporary African art and the need to understand its place within a global art scene, this book presents a compelling and eloquent argument in a refreshingly erudite collection of essays with a rich mosaic of perspectives. This exemplary volume makes a forceful case for the study of contemporary art.'' Joanne B. Eicher, Chair, ACASA Book Awards Committee.

In geological terms, fault lines reveal themselves as fractures in the earth’s surface, but they also mark a break in the continuity of the strata. Fault lines may be a sign of significant shifts, or even of impending disaster, but they also create new landscapes. Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes brings together contemporary artists and writers from Africa and the African diaspora whose works trace the fault lines that are shaping contemporary experience locally and globally. Fault Lines traces a journey from the rousing words of the first presidents of the independent states of Africa at the high point of Africa’s postcolonial renaissance to the current ‘states of emergency’ that Stuart Hall discerns in the work of the Fault Lines artists. Across a range of media, the works of these fifteen artists span five decades, four continents and three generations, resisting any notion of an authentic or one-dimensional African experience.

Artists include: Laylah Ali (US), Kader Attia (France), Zarina Bhimji (UK), Rotimi Fani-Kayode (Nigeria/UK), Hassan Fathy (Egypt), Moshekwa Langa (South Africa), Salem Mekuria (Ethiopia/US), Sabah Naim (Egypt), and Moataz Nasr (Egypt).

Contributors include: Gamal Abdel-Nasser (Egypt), Solomon Deressa (Ethiopia), Deepali Dewan (India/US), Okwui Enwezor (Nigeria/US), Lisa Fischman (US), Elsabet Giorgis US), Stuart Hall (Jamaica/UK), Salah M. Hassan (Sudan/US), Sarat Maharaj (South Africa/UK), Prince Massingham (South Africa), Achille Mbembe (Cameroon/South Africa), Prince Mbusi Dube (South Africa), Kobena Mercer (Ghana/UK) , Landry-Wilfrid Miampika (Congo/Spain), Adriano Mixinge (Angola), Simon Njami (Cameroon), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), and Bheki Peterson (South Africa).

Gilane Tawadros is the founding director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) in London. Sarah Campbell was the commissioning editor at inIVA .

 

 

 

Fault Lines

isbn 1 899846 38 7
publishers inIVA and Forum for African Arts with Prince Claus Fund Library, 2003
paperback 17 x 22 cm, 272 pages. 178 illustrations, 128 in colour.
price £ 20.00
rights world, inIVA

Institute of International Visual Arts

to order:
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