Africas: The Artist and the City : A Journey and an Exhibition Book

"Africas: The Artist and the City" contains a double affirmation. It corroborates the existence of an "other" urban and artistic reality in Africa, and it asserts that these realities do not correspond with what stereotypes would have us see as Africa's sole reality. In the words of Pep Subiros, we should talk not of Africa but of Africas. Yet until now, there has been little said about the Africas depicted here, about urban centers like Dakar, Cape Town, and Abidjan that are undergoing urbanization and growth at breakneck speed. And what of the work of artists based in these cities? "Africas: The Artist and the City" aims to illustrate a moment in which a fertile collision is taking place between tradition and modernity, between the local and the global—and to introduce the settings where this confluence is taking place. Essays by Pep Subiros, Simon Njami, Kobena Mercer, Yacouba Konate, Kan-Si, Akinbode Akinbiyi.
Artists include: Akinbode Akinbiyi, Jane Alexander, Luis Basto, Willie Bester, Sokari Douglas Camp, Calvin Dondo, Godfried Donkor, Kan-Si, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Samuel Fosso, Moshekwa Langa, Santu Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Ousmane Dago Ndiaye, Eileen Perrier, Penny Siopis, Patrice Felix Tchicaya.