TOWARDS THE DECONSTRUCTION OF EUROCENTRIC ASSUMPTION OF POSTMODERNIST ART AS WESTERN IN ITS PROVENANCE

Abstract

Postmodernism is a shift from the rigours of modernism. The first usage of the term postmodernism was in the 1870s, when in a bid to move beyond French Impressionism; John Watkins Chapman suggested what he called a ‘postmodern style of painting.’ The basic features of postmodernism are conceptual art, installation art and performance art, among others. And for this fact, it can be argued that the origin of postmodernist art is traceable to the African installation arts and performance arts such as masquerading, Mbari art, water-pot reservoir installations, among many others that unarguably, predate ‘postmodern style of painting’ of 1870s. Advancing this line of argument, this paper surveys the African foundations of postmodernism art in, order to deconstruct the old narrative about the provenance of postmodernist art, relying on the qualitative method of data collection. The data were analyzed using historical and descriptive methods. Through the study it has been found that postmodernist art had been in practice in Africa since ages, beyond its emergence in the West. With examples drawn from different cultures, the study demonstrates that much of what we call postmodernism has existed as artistic practice in Africa, even though it was not called postmodernism.