Africa, art and us: from the Hottentot Venus to Samuel Eto’o, with anthropologist Ivan Bargna

Looking at art starting from the African arts as studied by the anthropologist gives us the chance to learn something more not only about others but also about ourselves, the opportunity to reflect on the stereotypes and prejudices that surround Africa, both when it is despised and when it is exalted, but also to ask ourselves what we mean when, more generally, we talk about “art”.

In approaching the arts of sub-Saharan Africa, Bargna analyses tradition and modernity, villages and metropolises, past and present, local points of view and global media representations; and then places artistic productions in their changing cultural and life contexts, showing how they are transformed when the West lays its eyes and puts its hands on them.