Black and Gold

For centuries, Africa has been the center of the global trade in gold. Synonymous with wealth and power in African cultures, this precious metal was also central to the emergence of Europe’s colonial empires and the contemporary world made in their wake. Black and gold have thus always been conjoined and yet set in opposition: blackness as negation, gold as universal standard of value. Black & Gold is a genealogy of this seeming contradiction—a global history of value told through episodes of Black creative practice.

Featuring the work of acclaimed contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Theaster Gates, Wangechi Mutu, El Anatsui, Chris Ofili, and Kerry James Marshall, this book unearths a series of historical and ecological connections—the mining of gold on the continent and its relationship to the diaspora, “black gold” as a colloquialism for oil, and Blackness as a form of cultural “gold.” By bringing early modern histories of alchemy, art, and colonial contact into the present, W. Ian Bourland tells a multifaceted story about the fetishization of gold, driven by an impulse to extract Blackness and refine people and matter into ever greater forms of abstraction with devastating consequences for the environment and humanity.

In simplest terms, Black & Gold reconsiders the material and symbolic life of gold and the Black labor that has always sustained it. It will resonate with art critics and scholars, museumgoers and collectors, and anyone interested in modern and contemporary art, the Black Atlantic, and global histories of empire and culture.

“With Black & Gold, Bourland has delivered a most fascinating and provocative work of scholarship. This is a probing, deeply nuanced, and reassuringly thoughtful reflection that deepens our understandings of the practices of several artists of the African Diaspora. The practices of these artists are read against the violent and brutal histories of exploitation and extraction, particularly those relating to gold, a precious metal that continues to fascinate and dominate the world, both culturally and economically. With this book, Bourland underlines his credentials as a leading scholar whose work is engaged and engaging.”—Eddie Chambers, author of World Is Africa: Writings on Diaspora Art

W. Ian Bourland is a cultural critic and historian who writes widely on art, photography, film, and music. He is Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor at Georgetown University and author of Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and the 1980s and Massive Attack’s Blue Lines.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1 Dark Matter

LOCATIONS: Chicago,

Johannesburg, Edgefield, SC

PEOPLE: Theaster Gates,

Saidiya Hartman, Denise

Ferreira da Silva, Grace Wales

Bonner, David Drake

2 Liquidity

LOCATIONS: London, Chicago,

coast of Ghana, Plymouth,

space and sea

PEOPLE: Yinka Shonibare

CBE, Eshun brothers,

Olaudah Equiano, John

Akomfrah, Donald Rodney

3 Lost Cities

LOCATIONS: Cape Town,

Maputo, Ophir, trans-

Saharan trade routes,

Matopos

PEOPLE: Sethembile Msezane,

Samson Kambalu, Gerald

Machona, Mansa Musa,

“unknown masters”

4 Conversions

LOCATIONS: Brixton, ancient

Greece, the Factory,

Dutch Empire, Eastern

Christendom, Philadelphia

PEOPLE: Rotimi Fani-Kayode,

Andy Warhol, Gerald

Machona, Barkley Hendricks,

Agnes Martin

vi Contents

5 Depth Psychology

LOCATIONS: Manhattan,

rural Ghana, Paris, Utopia,

Portuguese trade routes, a

mile under the Rand

PEOPLE: Santigold, Wangechi

Mutu, some French

surrealists, Cheri Samba,

David Goldblatt

6 Tailings

LOCATIONS: Las Médulas,

Namib desert, Soweto,

western Rand, Cape Flats,

Accra, off-world

PEOPLE: Grada Kilomba,

Steve McQueen CBE, Santu

Mofokeng, David Goldblatt,

Igshaan Adams, El Anatsui

7 Black Edge

LOCATIONS: Johannesburg,

Serra Pelada, cyberspace

PEOPLE: Sebastião Salgado,

William Kentridge

Bibliographical Note

Notes

Index

African American Studies

Art History & Architecture

           Early Modern

           Modern and Contemporary

           Art Theory & Criticism

Critical Race Studies

Africana Studies