World is Africa

Longlisted for the Historians of British Art (HBA) Book Prize 2023
World is Africa brings together more than 30 important texts by Eddie Chambers, who for several decades has been an original and a critical voice within the field of African diaspora art history. The texts range from book chapters and catalogue essays, to shorter texts. Chambers focuses on contemporary artists and their practices, from a range of international locations, who for the most part are identified with the African diaspora. None of the texts are available online and none have been available outside of the original publication in which they first appeared.
The volume contains several new pieces of writing, including a consideration of the art world 'fetishization' of the 1980s, as the manifestation of a reluctance to accept the majority of Black British artists as valid individual practitioners, choosing instead to shackle them to exhibitions that took place three decades ago. Another new text re-examines the 'map paintings' of Frank Bowling, the Guyana-born artist who was the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Britain in 2019. The third introduces the little-known record sleeve illustrations of Charles White, the American artist who was the subject of a major retrospective in 2018 at major galleries across the US. Among the other new texts is a critical reflection on the patronage the Greater London Council extended to Black artists in 1980s London.
World is Africa makes a valuable contribution to the emerging discipline of black British art history, the field of African diaspora studies and African diaspora art history.

Eddie Chambers is Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. He has been writing about African Diaspora and Black British art practices for several decades and his scholarship includes Black Artists in British Art (I. B. Tauris, 2014) and Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britain (I. B. Tauris, 2016).

List of Illustrations
Foreword, Patricia Bickers
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Section One - On Art History, Institutions, and Academia
1 Section One, Introduction
2 The Harmful Consequences of Postblack
3 Africa 05: Polemic
4 Dead Artists' Society
5 Black Artists and the Fetishisation of the 1980s
6 Black British Artists and Problems of Systemic Invisibility and Eradication: Creating Exhibition Histories of That Which Is Not There
7 Framing Black Art
Section Two - History and Identity
8 Section Two, Introduction
9 'Handsworth Songs' and the Archival Image
10 Black British and Other African Diaspora Artists Visualising Slavery
11 2000's Got to be Black
12 Next We Change Earth
13 Keith Piper, Donald Rodney and the Artists' Response to the Archive
14 Black British Photography
Section Three - On Artists
15 Section Three, Introduction
16 Sokari Douglas Camp CBE
17 William Kentridge: The Main Complaint
18 Hurvin Anderson: Double consciousness
19 Jonathan Jones: untitled (the tyranny of distance)
20 Vanley Burke: An Inglan Story, An Inglan History
21 Helen Wilson: Painting for a Brighter Future
22 Barbara Walker: Private Face
23 Barbara Walker: It's a Bit Much
24 Reviewpiece: Ajamu & Sunil Gupta
25 Pat Ward Williams: Isolated Incidents
26 Donald Rodney: Three Songs on Pain Light & Time
27 Ben Jones: In the Spirit, In the Flesh
28 Frank Bowling and the Enigma of Guyana
29 Charles White's 10- and 12- Inch Vinyl Messages
30 Hew Locke's Depictions of Royalty
Section Four - Black Artists in History
31 Section Four, Introduction
32 Independence and Cultural Nationalism in Caribbean Art
33 Black Artists and the Greater London Council
34 Art and Society, Jonathan Greenland interview with Eddie Chambers
Section Five - Criticize
35 Section Five, Introduction
36 Contemporary Art or Contemporary African Art?: The Inevitable Death of the Latter
37 Richard Hylton, The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector: A Study of Policies, Initiatives and Attitudes 1976 - 2006: Afterword
38 Elvan Zabunyan, Black is a Color (A History of African American Art): Book review
39 "Black My Story, (Museum de Paviljoens, Netherlands, 2003): Book review
40 Criticize: Press Responses to Black Art an' done and The Pan-Afrikan Connection exhibitions
Section Six - Outernational
41 Section Six, Introduction
42 Àsìkò Goes Outernational
43 Jamaica Goes Outernational
Index