Of Art Worlds - Collecting and Archiving Modern and Contemporary Art on the African Continent

Abstract

Abstract

The project is inspired by a perspective of multiplicity that foregrounds art collections and artworks as multi-layered configurations. It aims to look at art collections (on the African continent and, due to the pandemic, here in Germany), by starting analytically with artworks, their formal qualities and what these might bring to light, and exploring the object biographies of each artwork in a collaborative (!) and sensory approach, as all information is linked to the form and histories of the collections and the institutions associated with them. It also helps to question established narratives and one’s owns view on artworks and art worlds in general. The project builds on the work of previous research projects such as African Art History and the Formation of a Modern Aesthetic: African Modernism in Institutional Art Collections Related to German Collecting Activities, in which the history of modern art is seen as an intertwined history that needs to be considered from a trans-cultural perspective and in which collections are examined as networks, but also through an in-depth analysis of the biographies of singular artworks.