Insistent Presence Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection

Drawing on curator Okwui Enwezor and art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu's observation of an “insistent presence of the human figure in the work of contemporary African artists,” Insistent Presence features writing by guest curator Margaret Nagawa that extends existing scholarship on African art. Nagawa’s work explores how artists of today continue to leverage the image of the African body to negotiate issues of political and social power, identity, and belonging.

With notions of the presence and absence of the human body as its organizing principle, this publication features forty-five works of sculpture, painting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography by twenty-four artistsin three sections: “The Body in Society” explores identity in relation to others; “The Artist Is Present” portrays the body of the artist as a performer sharing their personal histories through theatrical performances, photography, and sculpture; and “The Absent Body” invokes only a mental image of the body through the depiction of accessories and accoutrements. Each section in Insistent Presence highlights twenty-first-century ways of being in the world and invites us to reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the worlds we inhabit.