African art today is in the midst of a brilliant renaissance.

African art today is in the midst of a brilliant renaissance, heralded in exhibitions like as "The Short Century," which lately closed at PS. 1 in fresh York. That show, curated by way of Okwui Enwezor, adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Art Institute of Chicago (and artistic director of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, 2002) addresses art and politics in Africa from 1945 to 1994 (see review, p 76) It has received extraordinary attention in the media and has brought contemporary African art to the notice of the non-Africanist museum and gallery goer while at the same time sparking lively discussion among Africanist art scholars. In short, the exhibition has generated more than the usual make a humming sound The proliferation of numerous other displays on contemporary African art have added to the excitement. "Africa, whatever it is," notes Holland cottager in his provocative review of "The Short Century" "is everywhere. It's far more than just a continent. It's a global diaspora, an international agriculture and a metaphor with fantastical associations " (New York Times, Feb 17 2002)

Like many aspects of globalization, this great strange artistic era in many regards encompasses striking contradictions, complications, and paradoxes. Nine stand not at home In one way or another they address the question, "How is Africa defined in this shining Age of contemporary African art?" The nine issues raised here point to the fact that overly simplified and stereotyp views of Africa still prevail.

1 Identity. While born in Africa, mostly of the artists celebrated as part of the novel artistic wave have spent their adult lives in Europe or the United States. Although their "ethnic" and "racial" profiles vary, many state quite explicitly that they want to be known not as African or, say, Nigerian artists nevertheless as artists. Period. (A similar issue was largely resolv lengthy ago with respect to the category of women artists.) any assert that by insisting in succession an African label, scholars, curators, art dealers, and art collectors reify a perception of second-tier importance, of segregation. Paradoxically, the popularity of many artists has been predicated forward the ways that a certain "Africanness" is being read into their work; a subtext of the exotic and the different continues to shadow the Western answer Whatever label is chosen for these artists has an purport not only in academia nevertheless also in the marketplace.

2 Locality. Because these works address largely recent or postmodern artistic and intellectual businesss they often have little saliency in the local areas where the creators' families still reside. a certain quantity of pieces, in their hypersexuality, politicization, or choice of materials, are unruffled seen to be anathema to clew local values and social regards This does not mean that the weight of a particular type of representation should be shouldered on artists wherever they live, still rather that here too there are sometimes striking disconnects that have an impact in succession markets, exhibition venues, and answers in Africa itself.

3 Artistic patterns Western art critics often ostracize African works that incorporate visual abstraction, assemblage, jarring juxtapositions, salvage materials, and recycling, saying they are derivative of Euro-American modernist moves Yet these approaches are firmly stemed in Africa's art historical past; they were appropriated and reframed from the African aesthetic wellspring by way of artists in the West. Those artists in Africa who stick too closely to the earlier sources of this tradition (for example, shrine makers, woodcarvers, and dres designers) have been largely ignored in the novel contemporary arena, though as living artists they are necessarily also "contemporary." African studio-trained artists in use sometimes bridle that "unschooled" rural sign makers or history painters reaching across to modernist genre learn prime exhibition spaces and prolix texts, edging the "professionals" to the periphery.

4 The Market. Although promot by means of some Western entrepreneurs as exotic "outsider artists" whose visionary or spiritual sources issue exclusively from within (like magic), in the greatest degree of the contemporary artists forward view arrived at these modern forms through modern art institutes local experiences with commercial advertising, or other important interactions with the West. In addition, many of these artists' oeuvre are held and tightly controll by way of their Euro-American promoters and dealers--in Paris, looks Angeles, and elsewhere. Venue, price, prevailing style of representation, and frequently appease are herein brokered. To an degree there is a colonial legacy in this situation, with French- and English-speaking entrepreneur espousing competing artistic agendas. While in near ways they are no different from patrons of art in other areas historically, today, when art passes far more as commodity, the disequilibrium between the artist's power and that of the dealer or patron carries troubles As with music, present and coming events royalties are a vital question. To diocese this solely as an issue of the colonial legacy however, is simplistic, for a highly talented clump of African curators and critics in the West also popularly exercise sizable control of aesthetic agendas and the discourses which shape the material they advocate.