Dear all:
What a way to begin 2016 with the best news ever: our own Chika has won the Jewett Mather Award for his magisterial book, Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria published by Duke University Press. With 129 color images, this outstanding book "chronicles the emergence of artistic modernism in Nigeria in the heady years surrounding political independence in 1960, before the outbreak of civil war in 1967. Chika Okeke-Agulu traces the artistic, intellectual, and critical networks in several Nigerian cities. Zaria is particularly important, because it was there, at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, that a group of students formed the Art Society and inaugurated postcolonial modernism in Nigeria. As Okeke-Agulu explains, their works show both a deep connection with local artistic traditions and the stylistic sophistication that we have come to associate with twentieth-century modernist practices. He explores how these young Nigerian artists were inspired by the rhetoric and ideologies of decolonization and nationalism in the early- and mid-twentieth century and, later, by advocates of negritude and pan-Africanism. They translated the experiences of decolonization into a distinctive "postcolonial modernism" that has continued to inform the work of major Nigerian artists.”
Since the establishment of this award in 1963, it has gone to two other black scholars, Lowery Stokes Simms and Okwui Enwezor. Our very own Chika has made us proud, and in very big way.
Chika Okeke-Agulu is one of the foremost scholars of African art, a curator, artist, and Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Archaeology and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. He is a coauthor of Contemporary African Art since 1980 and coeditor (with Okwui Enwezor and Salah M. Hassan) of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, also published by Duke University Press.
Do please join me in congratulating Chika.
Frank Jewett Mather Award
The Frank Jewett Mather Award, first presented in 1963 for art journalism, is named in honor of the art critic, teacher, and scholar who was affiliated with Princeton University until his death in 1953. It is awarded for significant published art criticism that has appeared in publication in a one-year period; the 2014 award year is September 1, 2012–August 31, 2013. The Mather award may be given for work that originated before the indicated period provided that such work extends into the award period.
CAA has announced the recipients of the 2016 Awards for Distinction, which honor the outstanding achievements and accomplishments of individual artists, art historians, authors, conservators, curators, and critics whose efforts transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large.
CAA will formally recognize the honorees at a special awards ceremony to be held during Convocation at the 104th Annual Conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday evening, February 3, 2016, 5:30–7:00 PM. Led by DeWitt Godfrey, president of the CAA Board of Directors, the awards ceremony will take place in the Marriott Ballroom, Salon 2, Lobby Level, Washington Marriott Wardman Park. Convocation and the awards ceremony are free and open to the public. The Washington Marriott Wardman Park is located at 2660 Woodley Road NW, Washington, DC 20008.
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