Introduction

The introduction advises the reader that this collection of essays, originally published between 2006 and 2020, embodies Enwezor’s mature ambition: to establish a certain critical, Africanist, diasporic imagining of postcoloniality within global art discourse. It argues that Enwezor did so through what he called “a form of curatorial counterinsurgency” in the staging of contemporary art survey exhibitions in prominent museums and institutions, including the Seville, Paris, and Venice biennials. He also embarked on a program of art historical revisionism, especially about the roots of contemporary art in a postwar, multipolar world. His work as director of the Haus der Kunst, Munich, is discussed, as are his several teaching posts. The smaller number of essays, interviews, and exhibitions of women artists is noted, as is an almost total absence of reference to Indigenous art and artists.