LIVE LECTURE (ALSO AVAILABLE ONLINE THROUGH ZOOM)

Abstraction and African Art: Historic Arts (Lecture 1 of 2)
Kevin Tervala, associate curator of African art and department head for arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, & the Pacific Islands at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Africa has long been associated with abstract artistic expression. Indeed, the story of African art’s entrance into the art historical canon is so well known that it scarcely needs to be repeated. Yet, in spite of the voluminous scholarship on European interest in African abstraction, there is much we do not know about the history of abstract form on the continent itself. Most basically: What does abstraction mean in Africa? Why did it develop in some places and not others? Where did it emerge, what prompted its genesis? Our lectures begin to answer these questions through an examination of both historic and modern abstract practices.

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