Decolonizing Islamic Art in Africa: New Approaches to Muslim Expressive Cultures

Description: New research explores Muslim arts and identities in postcolonial Africa.

This collection explores the dynamic place of Islamic art, architecture, and creative expression in processes of decolonization across the African continent in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Presenting new methodologies for accentuating African agency and expression in stories about Islamic art, it is a vital new contribution to recent widespread efforts to liberate the art historical canon.

Bringing together new work by leading specialists in the fields of African, Islamic, and modern arts and visual cultures, the book directs unprecedented attention to the contributions of African and Muslim artists in articulating modernities in local and international arenas. Interdisciplinary and transregional in scope, it enriches the under-told story of Muslim experiences and expression in Africa, which is home to nearly half a million Muslims, or a third of the global Muslim population.

Furthermore, the book elucidates the role of Islam and its expressive cultures in postcolonial articulations of modern identities and heritage, as expressed by a diverse range of actors and communities based in Africa and its diaspora. Countering notions of Islam as a retrograde or static societal phenomenon in Africa or elsewhere, contributors propose new methodologies for accentuating human agency and experience over superficial disciplinary boundaries in the stories we tell about art making and visual expression, thus contributing to widespread efforts to decolonize scholarship on histories of modern expression.

Brief description: Ashley Miller is assistant curator of African art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Review Quotes:

"What I find most compelling about this book is that it moves beyond the well worn grand narratives in western art history such as the monumental architecture of ancient and medieval Egypt, and the Islamic dynasties that shaped the architecture of countries surrounding the Middle East, the Mediterranean and northern Africa. In this book, the relational influences demonstrate the porous nature of the African diaspora from West Africa across to the global diaspora of Cuba and France.

It is a book that is rich in wonderful case studies and a wide range of both historical and contemporary works by African artists and designers... [It is] very effective in its demonstration of the complexity of the Muslim, African and diasporic actors who have contributed to the evolution of art in Africa, specifically architecture. For teachers studying the impact of Islamic art and philosophy in the contemporary world in their classrooms beyond the well-trodden western art history texts, this may be a very informative read. I found it fascinating."