Transatlantic Dialogue: Contemporary Art in and Out of Africa

"Transatlantic Dialogue" opens an exciting cultural dialogue at the crossroads where Western and African art traditions intersect. Despite diversity of media, technique, and form, these contemporary African and African American art works and the artists who created them are united by a rich network of connections, exchanges, and associations generated from both shores of the Middle Passage. Collected in this book are 24 color reproductions of the art of seven African artists: Skunder Boghossian, Sokari Douglas Camp, Rashid Diab, Amir Nour, Moyo Ogundipe, Moyo Okediji, and Ouattara - and seven African American artists: Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Biggers, Jeff Donaldson, Yvonne Edwards-Tucker, Winnie Owens-Hart, Charles Searles, and Al Smith. Paintings, mixed media, sculptures, and ceramics reflect issues of identity while expressing beauty, pulsating rhythms, and a sense of improvisation among bursts of colour and quieter, more contemplative moments. American artist and scholar Michael D. Harris and Nigerian artist and scholar Moyo Okediji construct a dialogue in companion essays that explore departures and arrivals, connections and distinctions between contemporary African and African American artists. Although the influence of African art on African American artists has received considerable attention, this book is among the first to discuss the influence of African American art on African artists, an exchange that continues to produce art that is both culturally unique and aesthetically rich. Michael D. Harris is assistant professor of African and African American art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Moyo Okediji is assistant professor of art at the University of Denver and assistant curator at the Denver Art Museum.