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Arts & Communication

ARTICLE
Former passions and current concerns about

African art, identity, and cultural heritage

Dunja Hersak*
Independent Scholar, Art History and Anthropology, Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

This paper examines the current state of African art history and material culture and
its changing directions since the 1970s when ethnographic fieldwork on historical
art and ritual in the rural context was the norm. It points to the significant shift in
interest during the last three decades from research and field study on historical
arts to contemporary African creativity by artists at home and abroad. In addition,
the paper discusses the more recent impact of social and political factors in the
Euro-American world challenging the West’s hold on material treasures from Africa
acquired during the colonial period and their long-standing Western interpretation
and exposure. This focus on the past has set into motion restitution projects and
provenance research of illegally acquired museum objects. Given the current divide
between scholars of different origins, training, and perspectives, as well as the diverse
viewpoints of Afrodescendants across the Western world, issues concerning research
*Corresponding author: methods, provenance, and the return of African collections to their homelands pose
Dunja Hersak many challenges that call for new transparent and collaborative approaches.
(dvhersak@gmail.com)
Citation: Hersak D. Former
passions and current concerns Keywords: African art studies; Contemporary African art; Provenance research;
about African art, identity, Restitution
and cultural heritage. Arts &
Communication.
2025;3(3):4894.
doi: 10.36922/ac.4894
Submitted: September 20, 2024 1. Introduction
When I began my doctoral studies in African art history at the School of African and
Revised: November 12, 2024
Oriental Studies in London in the 1970s, I was passionate about the subject as it was then
Accepted: November 15, 2024 taught and excited by the requirement to conduct fieldwork and explore some remote
Published online: December 31, culture area in Africa, like other colleagues of my generation. From today’s perspective
2024 many of the words in the sentence I have just written are controversial, obsolete, and
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). subject to major revision.
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms In unpacking that, there are several major issues at hand:
of the Creative Commons
AttributionNoncommercial License, First, the so-called “African art history” has had a meltdown and appears like an
permitting all non-commercial use, archaic anomaly nowadays. For one thing, the word “art” does not exist in most African
distribution, and reproduction in any languages, though that does not imply that aesthetic evaluation is or was absent and
medium, provided the original work
is properly cited. undefined. Since those beginnings a “historical” approach to the subject has never quite
taken off, as non-western art studies – especially in the Anglo Saxon world – were wedded
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with to interdisciplinarity embracing anthropology and ethnography rather than history.
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Second, “fieldwork” in rural areas is rarely undertaken today, especially by Western
affiliations. students, and is perhaps seen as tainted with colonial aspirations. Investigations in

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 1 doi: 10.36922/ac.4894