Between 1890 and 1918, British colonial expansion in Africa led to the removal of many African artifacts that were subsequently brought to Britain and displayed. Annie Coombes argues that this activity had profound repercussions for the construction of a national identity within Britain itself―the effects of which are still with us today. Through a series of detailed case studies, Coombes analyzes the popular and scientific knowledge of Africa which shaped a diverse public's perception of that continent: the looting and display of the Benin "bronzes" from Nigeria; ethnographic museums; the mass spectacle of large-scale international and missionary exhibitions and colonial exhibitions such as the "Stanley and African" of 1890; together with the critical reaction to such events in British national newspapers, the radical and humanitarian press and the West African press. Coombes argues that although endlessly reiterated racial stereotypes were disseminated through popular images of all things "African," this was no simple reproduction of imperial ideology. There were a number of different and sometimes conflicting representations of Africa and of what it was to be African―representations that varied according to political, institutional, and disciplinary pressures. The professionalization of anthropology over this period played a crucial role in the popularization of contradictory ideas about African culture to a mass public. Pioneering in its research, this book offers valuable insights for art and design historians, historians of imperialism and anthropology, anthropologists, and museologists.

Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England

Arts & Photography

Coombes, Annie E.

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

Kenya stands at a crossroads in its history and heritage, as the nation celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Britain in 2013. At this important juncture, what parts of its history, including the Mau Mau uprising, do citizens and state wish to remember and commemorate and what is best forgotten or occluded? What does heritage mean to ordinary Kenyans, and what role does it play in building nationhood and forging peace and reconciliation? Focusing on the 1990s to the present, "Managing Heritage, Making Peace" is a timely exploration of the ways in which Kenyans are engaging with the past in the present, including such local initiatives as the community peace museums movement, local and national monuments and other notable commemorative actions. The authors show how Kenya is facing a continuing crisis over nationhood, heritage, memory and identity, which must be resolved to achieve social cohesion and peace.

Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya (International Library of African Studies)

Politics & Social Sciences

Hughes, Lotte

Karega-Munene

Anthropology

I.B.Tauris

History after Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa

The democratic election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa in 1994 marked the demise of apartheid and the beginning of a new struggle to define the nation’s past. History after Apartheid analyzes how, in the midst of the momentous shift to an inclusive democracy, South Africa’s visual and material culture represented the past while at the same time contributing to the process of social transformation. Considering attempts to invent and recover historical icons and narratives, art historian Annie E. Coombes examines how strategies for embodying different models of historical knowledge and experience are negotiated in public culture—in monuments, museums, and contemporary fine art.
History after Apartheid explores the dilemmas posed by a wide range of visual and material culture including key South African heritage sites. How prominent should Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress be in the museum at the infamous political prison on Robben Island? How should the postapartheid government deal with the Voortrekker Monument mythologizing the Boer Trek of 1838? Coombes highlights the contradictory investment in these sites among competing constituencies and the tensions involved in the rush to produce new histories for the “new” South Africa. 
She reveals how artists and museum officials struggled to adequately represent painful and difficult histories ignored or disavowed under apartheid, including slavery, homelessness, and the attempted destruction of KhoiSan hunter-gatherers. Describing how contemporary South African artists address historical memory and the ambiguities uncovered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Coombes illuminates a body of work dedicated to the struggle to simultaneously remember the past and move forward into the future.

History

Africa

Duke University Press Books

Reference

Against the musty stereotypes and prejudices that still consider Africa a dark continent full of nameless, Third World nations always striving but never managing to catch up with the West, "Authentic/Ex-Centric" positions Africa as the source of many of the ideas associated with European modernism. From Cubism's radical abstraction to 70s performance art and its use of ritual, shamanism, and magic, the influence of African art has long been underappreciated. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name held to critical acclaim on the fringes of the 2001 Venice Biennale, "Authentic/Ex-centric" offers a glimpse of the ways in which African and African Diaspora artists have interpreted and translated the aesthetic and social experiences of post-colonial Africa into new idioms of artistic expression, and argues for their proper location in the broad narrative of global conceptualism. Edited by Salah Hassan &amp; Olu Oguibe. Essays by Siemon Allen, Sally Berger, Annie E. Coombes, Rory Doepel, Okwui Enwezor, Maryline Lostia, Gilane Tawadros, Christian Viveros-Faune. Afterword by Els Van Der Plas &amp; Damien Pwono. Artists include: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Willem Boshoff, Godfried Donkor, Rachid Koraichi, Berni Searle, Zineb Sedira, Yinka Shonibare. 
 6.5 x 8.5 in. 106 color, 12 b/w illustrations

Authentic/Ex-Centric: Conceptualism in Contemporary African Art

ENWEZOR, Okwui

Doepel, Rory

Forum for African Arts Inc

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Coombes, Annie E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Coombes, Annie E.