In the Black Fantastic
(2022)
Published by Thames & Hudson | UK
Author: Ekow Eshun
Hardcover | 304 pages | 250 x 195 mm | 300 Illustrations
Published to coincide with the In the Black Fantastic exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London.
In the Black Fantastic assembles art and imagery from across the African diaspora that embraces ideas of the mythic and the speculative. Neither Afrofuturism nor Magic Realism, but inhabiting its own universe, In the Black Fantastic brings to life a cultural movement that conjures otherworldly visions out of the Black experience – and beyond – looking at how speculative fictions in Black art and culture are boldly reimagining perspectives on race, gender, identity and the body in the 21st century.
Transcending time, space and genre to span art, design, fashion architecture, film, literature and popular culture from African myth to future fantasies and beyond, this vital, timely and compelling publication is an expressive exploration of Black popular culture at its most wildly imaginative, artistically ambitious and politically urgent.
African Artists: From 1882 to Now
(2021)
Published by Phaidon | UK
Author: Phaidon Editors with introduction by Chika Okeke-Agulu and glossary by Joseph L Underwood
Hardcover, 352 pages | 290mm x 50mm | 315 illustrations
A groundbreaking A-Z survey of the work of over 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Africa.
Modern and Contemporary African art is at the forefront of the current curatorial and collector movement in today’s art scene. This groundbreaking new book, created in collaboration with a prestigious global advisory board, represents the most substantial appraisal of contemporary artists born or based in Africa available. Features the work of more than 300 artists, including El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Lubaina Himid, William Kentridge, Julie Mehretu, Wangechi Mutu, and Robin Rhode, as well as lesser-known names from across Africa, with stunning and surprising examples of their art paired with insightful texts that demonstrate their contribution to the painting, sculpture, installation, photography, moving image, and performance art.
Advisory Panel: Alayo Akinkugbe, Kavita Chellaram, Raphael Chikukwa, Julie Crooks, Tandazani Dhlakama, Oumy Diaw, Janine Gaëlle Dieudji, Ekow Eshun, Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Joseph Gergel, Danda Jaroljmek, Omar Kholeif, Rose Jepkorir Kiptum, Alicia Knock, Nkule Mabaso, Lucy MacGarry, Owen Martin, Aude Christel Mgba, Bongani Mkhonza, Riason Naidoo, Paula Nascimento, Simon Njami, Robert Njathika, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Hannah O’Leary, Sean O’Toole, John Owoo, Brenda Schmahmann, Mark Sealy, Yasmeen Siddiqui, and Joseph L. Underwood
some are born to endless night — Dark Matter.
(2019/20)
Published by Autograph ABP | UK
—— Autograph
Author: Renée Mussai
Hardcover, 224 pages | 280mm x 230mm | 88 colour illustrations
Winner of the British Book Awards 2021, in the Exhibition Catalogue category.
“Merging abstraction and figuration with a performative engagement of the self, Lina Iris Viktor’s evocative practice is rooted in the notion of unruly visual pleasure as a politics for refusal – deeply invested in generative concepts of [black] futurity, subversive rupture and bold imaginary” - Renée Mussai
Accompanying Autograph’s critically-acclaimed Lina Iris Viktor exhibition, this is the first comprehensive monograph showcasing the British-Liberian artist’s work.
Published in a limited print run of only 750 copies, “Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter” is a beautifully produced, deluxe artist book with cloth cover, gilded page edges, embossed lettering in gold foil, and gloss varnished black-on-black endpapers. The book’s design reflects the artist’s intricate, labyrinthine patterns, her playful emphasis on different tonalities and densities of black, and ritualistic use of 24-karat gold.
Bringing together a curated selection of Viktor’s exquisite black, gold and ultramarine blue colour works, “Some Are Born To Endless Night — Dark Matter” is enriched with photographs documenting Autograph’s exhibition, and new texts by celebrated writers Christina Sharpe, Emmanuel Iduma and Yrsa Daley-Ward. An in-depth conversation between the artist and curator Renée Mussai is included in three parts.
1st Edition “Gold” — Limited to 48 copies, plus Artist and Printer Proofs, Signed and Numbered. Each cover uniquely gilded by hand.
(October 2019)
2nd Edition — General release book with expanded content including installation images. 750 copies.
(September 2020)
Africa State of Mind
(2020)
Published by Thames & Hudson | UK
Author: Ekow Eshun
Hardcover, 272 pages | 28.0 x 22.3 cm | 276 color illustrations
A vibrant photographic anthology that presents the work of a generation of image makers who are forging new visions of Africa.
“Africa State of Mind” gathers together the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across the continent, exploring Africa as a psychological space as much as a geographical one. Both a summation of new photographic practice from the last decade and a compelling survey of the ways in which contemporary African photographers are engaging with ideas of “Africanness,” “Africa State of Mind” is a timely collection of those photographers seeking to capture the experience of what it means to “be African.”
Presented in four thematic sections―“Hybrid Cities,” “Inner Landscapes,” “Zones of Freedom,” and “Myth and Memory”―each part presents selections of work by a new wave of African photographers who are looking both outward and inward: capturing life among the sprawling cities of the continent, turning the continent’s history into the source of resonant new myths, and exploring questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.
With over 300 photographs by more than fifty photographers, “Africa State of Mind” is a mesmerizing survey of the most dynamic scenes in contemporary photography and an introduction to the creative figures making them.
Other Language Editions :-
L’Africa Del XXI Secolo —— Fotografie da un Continente (2020)
Published By Einaudi | Italy
—— Italian Edition
Cover Artwork — “Eighth” (2018)
Africa 21e Siècle — Photographie Contemporaine Africaine (2020)
Published by Editions Textuel | France
—— French Edition
Cover Artwork — “Eighth” (2018)
A Haven. A Hell. A Dream Deferred.
(2018)
Published by Skira Editore | Italy
Edited by Allison K. Young
Texts by Allison K. Young, Renée Mussai and Emmanuel Iduma.
Softcover, 87 pages | 22 x 28 cm | 54 color illustrations
A publication devoted to the British-Liberian artist to commemorate her first solo museum exhibition.
Lina Iris Viktor’s mixed media works reflect on the relationship between art, prophecy, and spiritual belief. Merging self-portraiture with opulent geometric backdrops, Viktor draws from a variety of influences such as ancient mythology, West and Central African tribal cosmologies, Aboriginal dream paintings, African textiles, astronomy and contemporary visual culture.
Viktor’s new series for the New Orleans Museum of Art looks to the history of the Republic of Liberia, from which her parents were forced to flee amidst civil war in the 1980s. Liberia, established in West Africa as an act of American “altruism” following the abolishment of the international slave trade, exists as a place of confusion for the artist and is presented as an uneasy utopia and a cautionary tale. The nation was founded in the early nineteenth century by the American Colonization Society, a private society that petitioned for the abolition of slavery as well as the resettlement of freed African Americans in West Africa. Extending Viktor’s engagement with the entanglement of Liberia’s founding to the history of slavery and abolitionism in the United States prior to the Civil War, this exhibition will also feature works that consider the history of slavery in the U.S. South as well as the complexity of New Orleans’ own historical and cultural links to Africa.
Art of Jazz: Form / Performance / Notes (2017)
Published by Harvard University Press
—— Harvard University PressEdited by David Bindman, Suzanne Preston Blier, & Vera Ingrid Grant
Paperback, 176 pages | 9 x 10 inches | 109 color illustrations
This catalogue documents the exhibition Art of Jazz, a collaborative installation at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art with one section (FORM) installed at the Harvard Art Museums. The book explores the intersection of the visual arts and jazz music, and presents a visual feast of full color plates of artworks, preceded by a series of essays.
Visual artists represented in ‘Form’ include Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Romare Bearden, and Stuart Davis. ‘Performance’ includes art by Hugh Bell, Carl Van Vechten, and Romare Bearden; additional album cover art by Joseph Albers, Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers; and posters and photographs of Josephine Baker and Lena Horne. ‘Notes’ includes art by Cullen Washington, Norman Lewis, Walter Davis, Lina Iris Viktor, Petite Noir, Ming Smith, Richard Yarde, Christopher Myers, Whitfield Lovell, and Jason Moran.