This special issue is dedicated to the memory of Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019), the first African and Black curator and director of documenta11 (2002) and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). The articles and personal tributes collected here recognize the profound impact left by the Nigerian art historian, curator, poet, and educator who transformed the curatorial present of global exhibitions and anticipated their decolonizing futures. Enwezor created political platforms and artistic manifestos that not only changed the form and function of global exhibitions, but also opened up new ways to align activism with aesthetic practices, performative displays, and curatorial initiatives.
Contributors - art historians and critics, curators, and artists - address how Enwezor's approach to the exhibition as a "space of public discourse" intersects with theories of affect, indigeneity, race, queer studies, and feminism.
Contributors: David Adjaye, Hoor Al Qasimi, Natasha Becker, Naomi Beckwith, Zarina Bhimji, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Jane Chin Davidson, Shane Doyle, Tamar Garb, Kendell Geers, Salah M. Hassan, Amelia G. Jones, Abdellah Karroum, Monique Kerman, Mohammed Ibrahim Mahama, Julie Mehretu, Susette S. Min, Wangechi Mutu, Sabine Dahl Nielsen, Chris Ofili, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Alpesh Kantilal Patel, Anne Ring Petersen, Hoor Al Qasimi, Yinka Shonibare, Penny Siopis, Mary Ellen Strom, Przemyslaw Strozek, Mikhael Subotzky, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Octavio Zaya. (Verlagstext)
Contents:
-- From the editors
-- Okwui Enwezor and the art of curating (Jane Chin Davidson and Alpesh Kantilal Patel)
-- The rallying call to decolonize: Okwui Enwezor's legacy (Monique Kerman)
-- Abdelkader Lagtaa and his conceptual exercises in Poland (1972-74) (Przemyslaw Strozek)
-- A host of possibilities. Okwui Enwezor's exhibition making as a practice of hospitality (Susette Min)
-- Enwezor's model and Copenhagen's Center for Art on migration politics (Anne Ring Petersen and Sabine Dahl Nielsen)
-- Ethnic envy and other aggressions in the contemporary "global" art complex (Amelia Jones)
-- Cherry River. Where the rivers mix (Mary Ellen Strom and Shane Doyle)
-- Tributes: Julie Mehretu, David Adjaye, Octavio Zaya, Chris Ofili, Isaac Julien, Wangechi Mutu, Yinka Shonibare, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Kendell Geers, Abdellah Karroum, Mikhael Subotzky and Gideon Mendel, Naomi Beckwith, Steve McQueen, Ibrahim Mahama, Penny Siopis, Zarina Bhimji, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
-- Reviews:
-- Jacob Lawrence. The american struggle (Jody B. Cutler-Bittner)
-- Jacob Dlamini. The terrorist Album: Apartsheid's insurgents, collaborators, and the security police (Tamar Garb)