Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale contributes to a new understanding of "African art"--removed definitively from the realm of the ethnographic, and firmly placed within the framework of the transcultural aesthetic that has become accepted practice among Western artists. In their melding of cultural codes from their own ancient traditions, and from the cacophonous present, contemporary African artists have independently arrived at their own Post-Modern aesthetic.

Dakar and Abidjan, where most of the exhibiting artists live, are quintessentially Post-Modern cities, heterogeneous, multi-cultural, filled with clashing contrasts, and mobile populations. There, culture is reinvented every generation--or faster. Senegalese and Ivoirian artists are all familiar with modern and contemporary Western art but are not preoccupied with it. It is simply one of the multitude of sources of inspiration that surround them. At a geographic and spiritual remove from Western art movements, the artists presented here share certain assumptions about art that are distinctly their own. Featured artists from Senegal: Mor Faye, Moustapha Dime, from Ivory Coast: Tamsir Dia, Ouattara, and Gerard Santoni.

Exhibition catalogue by Thomas McEvilley, including extended interviews with the participating artists and his essay, Fusion: Hot or Cold? as well as an introduction by Susan Vogel.

Published and distributed by The Museum for African Art and Prestel, Munich, 1993. 96 pp.

Paper: ISBN 3-7913-1327-4. LCCN: 93-078927.