The History of African Art

This concise and accessible overview of African arts spans from prehistoric times to the present day. Authored by leading African art expert Suzanne Preston Blier, the guide navigates the art of the continent, exploring its evolution over 150,000 years. The

content is thoughtfully placed within the context of contemporary challenges, postcolonial debates, and ongoing discussions about the restitution of cultural objects. Once undervalued by the Western art world, this vast and intricate field has now gained global significance, emerging as a vital subject in art history education.

The author organises the guide chronologically into digestible chapters, covering ancient art, the Middle Ages, travel and trade, encounters with Europe during the age of exploration, the colonial era, post-colonial rebuilding, and contemporary art. The book addresses core, continent-wide themes in African visual and cultural expression, ranging from the life cycle to the body and representations of power dynamics.

Unlike traditional African travel writing, audiences can connect with this continent and its people through ten pairs of eyes. The Edinburgh International Book Festival asked ten writers of African heritage in five pairs to embark on journeys across Africa. The Outrider project

is an invitation for writers to explore travel writing through the “African Gaze.” The writers travel in and through the same society and write about their experience and encounters from their own perspective.

In the spring of 2020, they set out on their journeys, meeting writers and communities along their way and engaging in discussions around migration, colonial legacies, inequalities and the impact of globalisation and environmental change.

Their travels take them from the tourist beaches of Madagascar and Comoros to the Rastafarian town of Shashamane in Ethiopia, and from questions of renaming amongst the flora and fauna of Cape Town to learning to walk in circles and embrace sensuality in the Gambia.