Colonial Gaze and Indigenous Response:Identity Construction in Twentieth-Century African Contemporary Art
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64504/artsappreciation.v1i1.886Keywords:
African contemporary art, colonial gaze, identity construction, postcolonialism, decolonization, hybridityAbstract
The twentieth century was a period of intense political and cultural upheaval for the African continent. From the zenith of colonial rule to the rise of decolonization movements, African contemporary art played a pivotal role in this historical process. This paper examines how twentieth-century African contemporary art functioned as an "indigenous response," deconstructing and resisting the West's longstanding "colonial gaze." By drawing on Edward Said's theory of the "Other," Frantz Fanon's postcolonial psychology, and Homi Bhabha's concept of "hybridity," a four-dimensional theoretical framework is constructed for analyzing identity construction in African art. Research demonstrates that from the philosophical aesthetics of the Négritude movement and the "Natural Synthesis" of the Nigerian Zaria Art Society, to the material and historical reconstructions of contemporary artists El Anatsui and Yinka Shonibare, African artists have continuously negotiated tensions between tradition and modernity, the local and the global. The paper not only reveals the awakening of subjectivity in African art's resistance to Western Primitivism, but also offers a new academic perspective for understanding the "permanent state of transition" of postcolonial art in the context of globalization.
References
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