Böcker av Ashraf Jamal

The definitive and debut publication of the Qatar-based ARAK Collection - home to 4000 works from Sub-Saharan African artists.>A book in three parts, each with a contextual essay by art critic and cultural theorist Ashraf Jamal, the publication also features short, informative texts on each artist written by curator and researcher Nneoma Angela Okorie, and art historian and writer Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti.Through considered curation and engaging prose, African Art: The ARAK Collection places African art, and indeed the continent itself, at the centre of the world, and demonstrates why the rest of the globe is beginning to shift its focus toward African artists.

Ashraf Jamal is a Research Associate in the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg. He is the co-author of Art in South Africa: The Future Present and co-editor of Indian Ocean Studies: Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives. He is also the author of Predicaments of culture in South Africa, Love themes for the wilderness, and the award-winning short fiction, The Shades. With Skira, he has recently published In the World. Essays on Contemporary South African Art (2017. Jean Wainwright is an art historian, critic, curator and Andy Warhol scholar living in London. Sean O¿Toole is a journalist and writer. Formerly editor of Art South Africa, he also writes a weekly column on photography for the Sunday Times and a biweekly art column for the Financial Mail.

An inclusive exercise in cultural analysis, this book deals with the gravitas and folly of identity politics, the boom of so-called African art, and the fetish and fascination with a global Esperanto. Designed to provoke thought and feeling, it is hoped that this collection of essays on South African art will reach a wide audience. The book's strength lies in its diversity of focus and cultural frameworks. It offers no defining system or divining rod. Rather, it is hoped that this book will provide a healthy contribution to an already thriving debate regarding the value and purpose of contemporary art, the on-going significance of the decolonising project, and the importance of art from Africa in the global pantheon.