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Joanna Grabski
M.A. in History of Art and African Studies from Indiana University
Ph.D. in History of Art and African Studies from Indiana University
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Courses
Visual Life in African Cities (ARTH 334), Arts of Post-Colonial Africa (ARTH 225), African Art and Visual Culture (ARTH 121), Representing Africa on Film (ARTH 222), Arts of Oceania (ARTH 223), Art History Senior Seminar (ARTH 408)
Research and Teaching
My scholarship and teaching focus on artistic propositions and visual culture in Africa, especially Senegal and Congo, where I have conducted research on individual artists, art institutions, and expressive production in relation to urban life. My methodological orientation combines sustained ethnography, visual/textual analysis, and theorization to engage specificity of place as a modality through which to read the production and interpretation of creative projects. I have contributed to several edited collections and academic journals including African Arts, Art Journal, Fashion Theory, NKA, Presence Francophone, and Africa Today. Recent publications include an edited special issue of Africa Today dedicated to Visual Experience in Urban Africa. Current projects include completion of my book manuscript dealing with Dakar’s art world city, an edited volume about the productive work of interviews and scholarly narratives (co-edited with Carol Magee), and an experimental documentary film about visual markets and market imaginaries around Dakar’s Marche Colobane.
My research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship (2009-2010), the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (1998-1999), the Doctoral Fellowship from the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution (1999-2000), the GLCA New Directions Initiatives Grant (2011), the R. C. Good Faculty Fellowship, and the Denison University Research Foundation. My article, “Urban Claims and Visual Sources in the Making of Dakar’s Art World City,” Art Journal 68, 1 (Spring 2009) received the Art Journal Award from the College Art Association in 2010.
Current Projects
Market Imaginary (Producer/Director for 53 minute film dealing with Dakar's Marché Colobane) please see the film's trailer at http://vimeo.com/40033895
http://personal.denison.edu/~grabski/Market_Imaginary/Market_Imaginary.html
Art World City: Artists and Institutions in Cosmopolitan Dakar (book manuscript in progress).
African Art, Interviews, Narratives: Bodies of Knowledge at Work, edited by Joanna Grabski and Carol Magee (edited volume with twelve contributors) Indiana University Press: 2013.
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?cPath=1037_6094&products_id=806646
Guest Editor and Introduction, Africa Today: Special Issue on Visual Experience in Urban Africa, 54, 2 (Winter 2007).
“The Visual City: Tailors, Creativity, and Urban Life in Dakar, Senegal,” in Suzanne Gott and Krystine Loughran, eds. Contemporary African Fashion (Indiana University Press, 2010).
“Pap Ba’s Haute-Couture Fashion Photography,” Critical Interventions 6 (Spring 2010): 77-90.
“Traces and Echoes: Mixed Media Paintings of Kalidou Sy,” NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, number 24 (Spring 2009): 82-91.
“Making Fashion in the City: A Case Study of Tailors and Designers in Dakar, Senegal,” Fashion Theory: Special Issue on African Fashion, edited by Victoria Rovine, 13, 2 (Spring 2009): 215-242.
“The Dak’Art Biennale: Exhibiting Contemporary Art and Geopolitics in Africa,” NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art/Special Issue on the 21st Century and The Mega Shows, volume 22/23 (Spring/Summer 2008): 104-113.
“Projects of Collecting and Exhibition in Dakar: On Being a Mecene d’art,” Presence Francophone, Special Issue on Art in Dakar, edited by Helene Tissieres, (Spring 2008): 93-111. To be reprinted in Arts d’Ailleurs (Paris: Harmattan).
“Painting Fictions/Painting History: Modernist Pioneers at Senegal’s Ecole des Arts,” African Arts: Special Issue on Art Historical Perspectives on African Modernists, edited by Chika Okeke, 39, 1 (2006): 38-49, 93.
Curatorial Projects/Exhibition Essays
Exhibition Curator and Author of Exhibition Essay
Guissou Ma La Mbao: An Exhibition of Poesie Graphique by Abdoulaye Ndoye
Musee Boribana, Dak’Art Biennale Off 2010, Dakar, Senegal
Author of Exhibition Essay
Taking Off/L’Envol: A Mixed Media Installation by Ndary Lo
Eiffage, Dak’Art Biennale Off 2010, Dakar, Senegal
Author of Exhibition Essay, “The Harmonies of Becoming an Artist: Remembering the Artistic Practice of Seydou Barry,” in Catalogue of Seydou Barry’s Retrospective Exhibition at Dak’Art Off (Dakar: Impression Midi-Occident, 2008).
Author of Selected Essays, Trajectoires: Art Contemporain du Senegal; Collection Bassam Chaitou, Exposition Musee de l’Ifan de Dakar, (Dakar: Editions Kaani, 2007): 18-24, 74-75, 186-187.
Exhibition Co-Curator and Author of Exhibition Essay
Traces and Echoes: Mixed Media Paintings by Kalidou Sy
Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN, 2007
Exhibition Curator and Author of Exhibition Essay
La Peinture sans peinture: une selection d’oeuvres recentes de Abdoulaye Ndoye
West African Research Center, Dakar, Senegal, 1999
Exhibition Curator and Author of Exhibition Essay
L’Oeil vif: une exposition individuelle de Cherif Thiam
West African Research Center, Dakar, Senegal, 1999