{"product_id":"what-is-african-art-a-short-history-9780226793153","title":"What Is African Art?: A Short History","description":"\u003cb\u003eA history of the evolving field of African art.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e This book examines the invention and development of African art as an art historical category. It starts with a simple question: What do we mean when we talk about African art? By confronting the historically shifting answers to this question, Peter Probst identifies \"African art\" as a conceptual vessel that manifests wider societal transformations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat Is African Art?\u003c\/i\u003e covers three key stages in the field's history. Starting with the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, the book first discusses the colonial formation of the field by focusing on the role of museums, collectors, and photography in disseminating visual cultures as relations of power. It then explores the remaking of the field at the dawn of African independence with the shift toward contemporary art and the rise of Black Atlantic studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it examines the post- and decolonial reconfiguration of the field driven by questions of representation, repair, and restitution. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePeter Probst\u003c\/b\u003e is professor of art history and anthropology at Tufts University. He is the author or editor of several books, including \u003ci\u003eNational Museums of Africa\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOsogbo and the Art of Heritage\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eKalumbas Fest\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAfrican Modernities\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50497211433234,"sku":"9780226793153","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_71ca25dd-d407-4a0d-9c77-9ac49add2fcf.jpg?v=1730707282","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/what-is-african-art-a-short-history-9780226793153","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}