Notes on African Art, History, and Diasporas Within

Abstract

hat is Afri can time? Or perhaps we should ask instead, What time w is Africa's? Is it now? Has it passed? Where, and when, is African art history? In his 1984 book Art History in Africa, the venerable historian of Central Africa, Jan Vansina, famously chided his colleagues for being too shallow when it came to studying the art of the continent. Again, at the land mark 1987 symposium at the National Mu seum of African Art, African Art Studies: The State of the Discipline, Henry Drewal also noted that history was perhaps the most neglected aspect of the study of Af rican art. Almost two decades later, how has this situation changed? In what fol lows I highlight some of the more strident issues relating to the continued neglect of the historical study of African art, and I suggest a method for addressing the prob lem by considering visual objects in, and as, diasporas.