Designed as a curatorial practicum, this seminar offers an introduction to the field of African art history, building both theoretical and practical expertise related to the arts of Africa and postcolonial art histories more broadly. We will examine globally circulating arts from Guinea, West Africa, as a means of honing curatorial research and writing; engaging with key issues in museology; and developing the intellectual versatility needed to deal responsibly with arts and material culture dating from the late 19th century to the present. It may be generally convenient to slot the arts of Africa into neat categories determined by culture and geography (ethnic/national, African/diaspora) or by medium and period or type (traditional, popular, modern, contemporary). But artistic practices rarely conformed to such classifications. Not only have masks and other canonical works of Guinean sculpture made their way into collections around the world, but also Fodeba Keita (1921-1969), a central figure in Guinean art history who is today best remembered via Frantz Fanon as an exemplary literary producer of "national culture," was in fact active internationally in multiple artistic domains: music, poetry, theater, cinema, and choreography, as well as pan-Africanist anticolonial activism and postcolonial nation-building. In 1960, Keita's Paris- and Dakar-based internationally touring performance company Les Ballets Africains relocated to Conakry and became the top ensemble in Guinea's socialist-inspired national arts system, which mandated youth participation from around the country and transferred many ethnically specific art forms - notably masks and masquerade - to the national stage. When the socialist period ended in 1984, state arts patronage dwindled and many artists left for cities in Europe, the Americas, Japan, and elsewhere, inaugurating the contemporary phase in the global story of Guinean arts. Work for the seminar will include close study of objects in the Cantor Arts Center and other local collections; reading across periods, art forms, and disciplines; and short curatorial writing assignments. Final projects will take the form of position papers on proposed curatorial interventions.
4-5 units · Letter (ABCD/NP)
Designed as a curatorial practicum, this seminar offers an introduction to the field of African art history, building both theoretical and practical expertise related to the arts of Africa and postcolonial art histories more broadly. We will examine globally circulating arts from Guinea, West Africa, as a means of honing curatorial research and writing; engaging with key issues in museology; and developing the intellectual versatility needed to deal responsibly with arts and material culture dating from the late 19th century to the present. It may be generally convenient to slot the arts of Africa into neat categories determined by culture and geography (ethnic/national, African/diaspora) or by medium and period or type (traditional, popular, modern, contemporary). But artistic practices rarely conformed to such classifications. Not only have masks and other canonical works of Guinean sculpture made their way into collections around the world, but also Fodeba Keita (1921-1969), a central figure in Guinean art history who is today best remembered via Frantz Fanon as an exemplary literary producer of "national culture," was in fact active internationally in multiple artistic domains: music, poetry, theater, cinema, and choreography, as well as pan-Africanist anticolonial activism and postcolonial nation-building. In 1960, Keita's Paris- and Dakar-based internationally touring performance company Les Ballets Africains relocated to Conakry and became the top ensemble in Guinea's socialist-inspired national arts system, which mandated youth participation from around the country and transferred many ethnically specific art forms - notably masks and masquerade - to the national stage. When the socialist period ended in 1984, state arts patronage dwindled and many artists left for cities in Europe, the Americas, Japan, and elsewhere, inaugurating the contemporary phase in the global story of Guinean arts. Work for the seminar will include close study of objects in the Cantor Arts Center and other local collections; reading across periods, art forms, and disciplines; and short curatorial writing assignments. Final projects will take the form of position papers on proposed curatorial interventions.
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.