Talk: Beyond 'Tradition' and 'Modernity'

Video by Bard College Graduate Center, on the occasion of the Exhibiting Africa symposium

Speaking at Bard College Graduate Center's recent symposium on the state of the field Exhibiting Africa, I had the opportunity to offer some brief reflections on the exhibition element of my curatorial practice to date. Through approximately six projects developed over my last 17 years of curatorial practice, in which I have had the honor to care for two significant, distinct public collections of African art, I offered some examples of the ways in which so-called “traditional” and “contemporary” African art can inform/inspire in gallery settings. All projects share the same fundamental rejection of the framing of a discursive split between “tradition” and “modern/contemporary,” which continues to centralize the European colonial moment.

Instead, the aim in my practice has been to look at African art history as an evolving continuum over time, in which artists from the continent have always been participant in their own internally determined trajectories of contemporaneity, tradition, and modernity—often simultaneously. The aim in my practice has been to invite visitors to consider art works in relation to each other, and to visitors’ own experiences, in the hopes that they may open up space for surprise, curiosity, and empathetic engagement.