Ghana 1957: African Art After Independence - Planning Phase

FAIN: GE-293050-23

Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)
Christina Olsen (Project Director: January 2023 to present)

Planning for a traveling exhibition, website, and a catalog on the cultural and diplomatic impacts of Ghanian art around and after 1957, when Ghana declared independence.

In 1957, Ghana became the first African country to declare independence from its colonizers: by 1970, 45 of today's 54 African states had regained their independence. The autonomy of these nations coincided with artistic revolutions: everywhere, artists began rethinking their relationship to the new nation-state, the African continent, and the world at large, fractured by the Cold War into socialist and capitalist blocs. The University of Michigan Museum of Art requests planning support for Ghana 1957: African Art After Independence, an exhibition that explores how Ghana served as a locus for international networks of artistic, intellectual, and diplomatic exchange during this turbulent era. Emphasizing the relationships forged among artists and activists in Ghana and the US, this traveling exhibition invites audiences to connect with and contribute to global efforts to decolonize the institutions and social structures through which we narrate the history of art and its makers.