Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich.

Publications

• editor, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994-2019. [1] [2] (English)

• "Redrawing the Boundaries: Toward a New African Art Discourse", Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 1:1, Fall/Winter 1994, pp 3-7. [3] [4] (English)

• with Octavio Zaya, "Colonial Imaginary, Tropes of Disruption: History, Culture, and Representation in the Works of African Photographers", in In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1996, pp 17-48. (English)

• "A Critical Presence: Drum Magazine in Context", in In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1996, pp 179-192. (English)

• "Reframing the Black Subject: Ideology and Fantasy in Contemporary South African Representation", Third Text 40, 1997, pp 21-40. (English)

• "Where, What, Who, When: a Few Notes on 'African' Conceptualism", in Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950-1980s, eds. Jane Ferver, Luis Camnitzer and Rachel Weiss, New York: Queen's Museum of Art, 1999, pp 109-117. Catalogue essay. (English)

• editor, with Olu Oguibe, Reading the Contemporary: African Art, from Theory to the Marketplace, London: Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA), 1999, 432 pp, IA. TOC.

• "Lagos in the Culture of Twentieth-Century Modernity", in Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis, ed. Iwona Blazwick, London: Tate Gallery, 2001, pp 44-57. Catalogue essay. Excerpt. (English)

• editor, The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994, Munich: Prestel, 2001, 496 pp, IA. Chronology. Exh. held at Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Feb-Apr 2001; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, May-Jul 2001; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Sep-Dec 2001; MoMA PS1, Feb-May 2002. Reviews: Jackson (Afr Stud R), Denzer (Antipode). Exh. reviews: Eze (Antipode), Demissie (Antipode), Beidelman (Am Anthr). (English)
  • "O breve século: movimentos de independência e libertação na África, 1945-94: uma introdução", in Histórias afro-atlânticas, vol. 2: antologia, eds. Adriano Pedrosa, Amanda Carneiro, André Mesquita, São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2018. Trans. of Enwezor's introduction. (Brazilian Portuguese)

• Enwezor et al. (eds.), Documenta 11: Platform, 5 vols., Kassel: Documenta, and Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2002-2003. Volumes: 1. "Democracy Unrealized", 2002, 411 pp, IA; 2. "Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation", 2002, 404 pp; 3. "Creolité and Creolization", 2003, 273 pp; 4. "Under Siege: Four African Cities, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos", 454 pp; 5. "Exhibition", 2002, 620+50 pp, IA. Review: Martin (Radical Phil). (English)
  • Enwezor, "The Black Box", in Documenta 11 Platform: Exhibition, 2002, pp 44-55. (English)

• Grossausstellungen und die Antinomien einer transnationalen globalen Form / Mega Exhibitions: Antinomies of a Transnational Global Form, Munich: Fink, 2002, 59 pp. Lecture delivered at Humboldt University, Berlin, 4 Dec 2001. (German)/(English). English version repr. in Manifesta journal 2, Winter 2003/Spring 2004, pp 6-31.

• "Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art in a State of Permanent Transition", Research in African Literatures 34:4, Winter 2003, pp 57-82; repr. in Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, eds. Enwezor et al., Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. [5] (English)

• "Documentary/Vérité: Bio-Politics, Human Rights and the Figure of “Truth” in Contemporary Art", Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 5(1): "Art & Ethics", 2004, pp 11-42; repr. in The Green Room: Reconsidering the Documentary and Contemporary Art #1, eds. Maria Lind and Hito Steyerl, Berlin: Sternberg, and Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art/Bard College, 2008, pp 62-102. (English)

• "The Artist as Producer in Times of Crisis", 2004. [6] (English)

• Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, Gottingen: Steidl, and New York: International Center of Photography, 2006, 383 pp, IA. Catalogue; exh. held at the International Center of Photography, New York, 10 Mar-28 May 2006. [7], [8]. Exh. reviews: Cotter (NYT), Duran (SECAC Rev). (English)
  • "The Uses of Afro-Pessimism". (English)

• editor, The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, Sevilla: Fundación Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla (BIACS), 2006, 335 pp. Catalogue. (English)

• "History Lessons", Artforum 46:1, New York, Sep 2007, pp 382ff. (English)

• "The Production of Social Space as Artwork: Protocols of Community in the Work of Le Groupe Amos and Huit Facettes", in Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination After 1945, eds. Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, pp 223-251. (English)

• Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Photography, New York: International Center of Photography, and Göttingen: Steidl, 2008, 264 pp. Catalogue; exh. held at the International Center of Photography, New York, 18 Jan-4 May 2008. [9]. Exh.reviews: Avgikos (Artforum), Bastian (Am Archivist), Cotter (NYT), Saltz (NYMag), Swartz (NYArts), Maimon (CAA), Pelizzari (Ciel variable), Bodinson (Photo & Culture). (English)
  • "Archive Fever: Photography Between History and the Monument", pp 10-51. Lead essay. (English)

• editor, with Terry Smith and Nancy Condee, Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008, xviii+437 pp, EPUB. (English)

• with Chika Okeke-Agulu, Contemporary African Art Since 1980, Bologna: Damiani, 2009, 366 pp. Preface, Chs 1-7. (English)
  • "Situando a arte contemporânea Africana", in Africa africans: arte contemporânea, São Paulo: Museu Afro Brasil, 2015. Trans. of Chapter 1 ("Situating Contemporary African Art"). (Brazilian Portuguese)

• "Modernity and Postcolonial Ambivalence", in Altermodern: Tate Triennial, London: Tate, 2009; upd. version, South Atlantic Quarterly 109:3 (2010), pp 595-620. (English)

• "Reckoning with Empire", Artforum, Oct 2009, pp 175-177. On Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. (English)

• editor, Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity: Contemporary African Photography from the Walther Collection, Burlafingen: Walther Collection, and Göttingen: Steidl, 2010, 445 pp. Catalogue. (English)

• editor, Intense Proximity: An Anthology of the Near and the Far. La Triennale 2012, Paris: Centre national des arts plastiques: Artlys, 2012, 687 pp. Catalogue. (English)

• editor, with Rory Bester, Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, Munich: Prestel, 2013, 543 pp. Catalogue. Excerpt. Review: Von Blum (Afr Arts). (English)

• editor, with Katy Siegel and Ulrich Wilmes, Postwar Art: Between the Pacific and the Atlantic 1945-1965, Munich: Haus der Kunst, and Prestel, 2016, 846 pp. Catalogue. Exhibition website. [10] (English)
  • Postwar: Kunst zwischen Pazifik und Atlantik, 1945–1965, Munich: Haus der Kunst & Prestel, 2016, 846 pp. [11] (German)

• editor, Frank Bowling: Mappa Mundi, Munich: Prestel, and Haus der Kunst, 2017, 286 pp. Catalogue. Review: Zabunyan (Critique d'art). (English)

• editor, Sarah Sze: Centrifuge, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2018, 128 pp. Catalogue. (English)

Interviews

• Carol Becker, "Interview with Okwui Enwezor", Art Journal 57:2, Summer 1998, pp 101-107.

• Carol Becker, "A Conversation with Okwui Enwezor", Art Journal 61:2, Summer 2002, pp 8-27.

Links

• Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, New Museum, 2021. An exhibition conceived by Okwui Enwezor. Review: Ugelvig (Kunstkritikk). Report from panel discussion: Rana (Kunstkritikk).

• Obituaries: Jason Farago (New York Times), Jörg Heiser (Frieze), SFAI, Juliet Art Magazine, Andrew Russeth (ARTnews), Victoria L. Valentine (Culture Type), Claire Bishop (Third Text), Pamela M. Lee (October), Hito Steyerl, Coco Fusco, and Supercommunity (e-flux), Rory Bester (The Conversation).