Steven Nelson: Art History Spring Lecture

Dakar after the Revolution: Djibril Diop Mambety's Contras' City and May '68 In late May 1968, Dakar, Senegal exploded in demonstrations and riots. For some, these events ushered in new possibilities of being in the world. This changed ontology formed the basis for Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety's 1969 Contras' City (City of Contrasts). This discussion explores Mambety's use of architecture and urban space not only to meditate on a city constituted in large part through the collision of hybrid constituencies but also to satirize Senegalese authority and the nascent nation state's political apparatus. Steven Nelson, Associate Professor of African and African American art history, came to UCLA from Tufts University and Wellesley College in 2000. Professor Nelson is a former Reviews Editor for Art Journal and former Contributing Editor for African Arts. He is also the author of From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture in and out of Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2007), the co-editor of the exhibition catalogue New Histories (The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 1996) and has published, among other things, numerous items focused on the contemporary and historic arts, architecture and urbanism of Africa and its diasporas, African American art history, and queer studies. Aside from his books, most significant of these works are "Transgressive Transcendence in the Photographs of Rotimi Fani-Kayode," Art Journal (2005) and "Diaspora and Contemporary Art: Multiple Practices, Multiple Worldviews," in Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945 (Blackwell, 2006). Professor Nelson has received Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Getty Research Institute (2000-01) and Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2004-05). He is currently working on a new book, entitled Dakar: The Making of an African Metropolis. Professor Nelson earned his BA in studio art from Yale University and his AM and PhD in art and architectural history from Harvard University. Above bio is quoted from www.humnet.ucla.edu