<Insertions>: Self and Other in Contemporary African Art

This essay focuses on a group of contemporary African artis s who execute their work using their own i mages, or inscribe their own bodies into the final configurati n. Executed in the installation genre and influenced by Ideas of performance art, the works of these artl is have been primarily motivated by the quest for self-representation, interrogation of their own €xl`ste tial circumstances, or the negotiation of their identity. Because these artists also live and practice betwe n two or more cultures, their works often investigate the intersections of autobiography, self and the her. Like other contemporary non-white artists active in the West,these artists address the objectiflcati4n of non-white bodies and question their Imaging/imagining in Western culture. In some cases, interrogating the social constructions of the body within their own cultures may take precedence in their work over what has come to be known in contemporary discourse as 'returning the gaze: The term'insertion,'used in the title of this essay, embraces he multiple layers of meanings this word can evoke. It refers to the complex manner in which these artls s'insert' images of their bodies into their work. It also refers to the sexual metaphor or pun, often as ociated with the act of insertion. In the Western imagination, non-Western bodies, and more specific lly the Black body, are often objectified, exoticized and viewed with a mixture of fear and desire. As Henry Louis Gates eloquently argued:1