Enthusiasm: Collectiveness, Politics, and Aesthetics

From “Black Collectivities: A Conference,” held May 3–4, 2013, at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the University of Chicago’s Arts Incubator. This article begins with part of Elvira Dyangani Ose’s ongoing doctoral research into the recent upsurge of multidisciplinary and collective projects in Africa. It focuses on artists and artist collectives whose works intervene in everyday experience, emphasizing elements of the “common things” and questioning “the habitual.” Proceeding to a series of examples in modern Africa, the article uses Jean-François Lyotard’s notion of enthusiasm to explore in depth two case studies, Bessengue City Project and Chimurenga Library. Both initiatives incorporate the significance of the space where the art intervention is being produced and reflect the social relationships established there. Both look at modern African scenarios and propose new sociospatial paradigms.