Continental Rifts: Contemporary Time-based Works of Africa was a contemporary art show at UCLA's Fowler Museum held February through June 2009.
Ephemerality is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, from digital media to types of streams. "There is no single definition of ephemerality". With respect to unique performances, for example, it has been noted that "[e]phemerality is a quality caused by the ebb and flow of the crowd's concentration on the performance and a reflection of the nostalgic character of specific performances". Because different people may value the passage of time differently, ephemerality may be a relative, perceptual concept: "In brief, what is short-lived may not be the object itself, but the attention we afford it".
Tavia Nyong'o is a critic and scholar of art and performance. He is William Lampson professor of African American studies, American studies and theater and performance studies at Yale University where he teaches courses on black diaspora performance, cultural studies, and critical and aesthetic theory.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA is a museum on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) which explores art and material culture primarily from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas, past and present.
Alison Saar is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality. Saar is well known for "transforming found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion." Saar credits her parents, collagist and assemblage artist Betye Saar and painter and art conservator Richard Saar, for her early exposure to are and to these metaphysical and spiritual practices. Saar followed in her parents footsteps along with her sisters, Lezley Saar and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh who are also artists. Saar has been a practicing artist for many years, exhibiting in galleries around the world as well as installing public art works in New York City. She has received achievement awards from institutions including the New York City Art Commission as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.
Andrea Rose Fraser is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of institutional critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is a professor and area head of the Interdisciplinary Studio of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marilyn Jensen Houlberg was a professor, art historian, anthropologist, photographer, and curator. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Houlberg traveled extensively, conducting art historical and anthropological research in countries across the Caribbean and western Africa. She is known for curating exhibitions based on the religious icons and visual practices of Haitian Vodou and her anthropological research on the culture of the Yoruba people in southwestern Nigeria. Her photography archives and visual art collections are housed in various institutions throughout the United States. She was Professor Emeritus of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she taught for over twenty years.
Willie Bester is a South African painter, sculptor and collage artist. He is best known for his role in the protesting of the apartheid system through his artwork. He currently lives in Kuilsrivier, South Africa with his wife, Evelyn and their three children.
Chike C. Aniakor is a Nigerian artist, art historian, author, and poet whose work addresses philosophical, political, and religious themes relating to Igbo society and the Nigerian Civil War. His artworks are held in major metropolitan museums including the Smithsonian Institution, Nigerian National Gallery of Art, and the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Frankfurt. Aniakor is a prolific writer and has authored over 75 books and articles.
Twins Seven Seven, born Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki was a Nigerian painter, sculptor and musician. He was an itinerant singer and dancer before he began his career as an artist, first attending in 1964 an Mbari Mbayo workshop conducted by Ulli Beier and Georgina Beier in Osogbo. Twins Seven Seven went on to become one of the best known artists of the Osogbo School.
Owusu-Ankomah is a leading contemporary African artist with origins in Ghana. His work addresses themes of identity and the body, using his trademark motif of Adinkra symbolism. His work is also "influenced by the art of the Renaissance, handwritten texts from ancient cultures such as the adinkra symbol system of the Akan people of Ghana, Chinese ideograms, and contemporary global cultures." Owusu-Ankomah is a trained artist from Achimota College, near Accra, "established in 1936 and in 1952 incorporated into the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi."
Sammy Baloji is a photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in Lubumbashi and Brussels, and held exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Bilbao, Cape Town and Bamako.
Victoria Vesna is a professor and digital media artist. She is known for her feminist video, computer and internet art and has been active since the early 1980s. Along with collaborator Jim Gimzewski she is thought to have created one of the first interactive artworks related to nanotechnology and defines her art practice as experimental research.
Jane Alexander is one of the most celebrated artists in South Africa. She is a female artist best known for her sculpture, The Butcher Boys. She works in sculpture, photomontages, photography and video. Alexander is interested in human behavior, conflicts in history, cultural memories of abuse and the lack of global interference during apartheid. Alexander's work is relevant both in the current Post- Apartheid social environment in South Africa and abroad.
Krista Thompson is an art historian. She serves as Weinberg College Board of Visitors Professor and Professor in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University. Her work focuses on modern and contemporary art and visual culture of the Africa diaspora, particularly the medium of photography.
Evelyn Alcide is a Haitian drapo Vodou artist. Alcide studied under compatriot Myrlande Constant. Alcide often focuses her work on important Vodou religious figures. Her drapo are heavily beaded and have satin borders. Two of her flags depicting Lasirène were included in Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas a traveling exhibition originated at the Fowler Museum at UCLA that travelled to several venues including National Museum of African Art.
Doran H. Ross was an African art scholar, author, and museum director and curator. Ross was a renowned Ghanaian arts scholar who spent 20 years at the Fowler Museum at UCLA managing or curating nearly 40 African and African-American exhibitions shown at 30 venues across the country. His specialties included Ghanaian art, including Asafo flags, gold, elephant art forms, Asante regalia, and the works of Ghanaian painter Kwame Akoto.
Sidney Carolyn Littlefield Kasfir (1939–2019) was an art historian of African art.
Susan Mullin Vogel is a curator, professor, scholar, and filmmaker whose area of focus is African art. She was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded what is now The Africa Center in the early 1980s, served as Director of the Yale University Art Gallery, taught African art and architecture at Columbia University, and has made films.
Kofi Setordji is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Ghana. His works range from graphic design, textile designing, sculpture and painting.
Benin Altar Tusks are ivory artefacts from the Benin Kingdom in present-day Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. These tusks date back to the 16th century and measure approximately 61 inches (1,500 mm) in height, 5.2 inches (130 mm) in width, 4.7 inches (120 mm) in depth, and weighing 25 kilograms (55 lb) according to a sample at the British Museum. The tusks feature carved royal figures in traditional regalia, depicting scenes of power, ritual, and at times, conflict.