The art of decolonisation examines how artists challenged colonial legacies and reconfigured power through transnational networks of art and diplomacy. Adopting a global and transhistorical perspective, it explores artistic, political, and institutional relations between France and Senegal during decolonisation and the Cold War. From the emergence of a national modern art in Senegal to contested cultural policies and high-profile exhibitions such as those featuring Picasso and Soulages in Dakar, or contemporary Senegalese art in Paris this book traces the circulation of artworks, ideas, and influence across borders. It reveals how visual artists and filmmakers shaped a new artistic geopolitics between 1950 and 1970.
Reconsidering the accepted chronology of the 'global turn', The art of decolonisation shows that the roots of global art discourse run deeper than the 1990s, and were already forming during the era of independence struggles.
Table of Contents:
Preface to the translation: Outside in the French academic machine
Introduction
1 Exchanging rather than returning
2 Behind the masks
3 Overthrowing colonial legacies
4 Creating a new art for a new nation
5 The Musée dynamique: platform for decolonisation
6 The école de Dakar in Paris
Epilogue
Sources
About the Author :
Maureen Murphy is Professor of Art history at University Paris-Nanterre.
Review :
‘Murphy's thoroughly researched work provides fresh perspectives on Senegalese modern art through comprehensive use of archival sources. In clear, persuasive language, she explores the complexities of cultural transition across historical periods, national boundaries, and artistic media. Her critical analysis of decolonization reveals an artistic imagination that transcends reductive binaries of Europe versus Africa or dominant versus marginalized. The book is an essential resource for scholars and readers interested in postcolonial studies, museology, and global modernism.’
—Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, The Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator in Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
‘This fascinating book provides a fresh look at the cultural politics, institutional gambits and artistic claims shaping the postwar relations between Senegal and France. With her compelling transhistorical approach and careful archival work, Murphy deepens and complicates our knowledge of Senegalese modernism, anticolonial politics, and the networked histories of modernisms from the global south.’
—Elizabeth Harney, University of Toronto Scarborough
