Dismantling the West’s temples of plundered African artworks—essay collection reassesses the 'colonial encounter'

Jeremy Harding’s essay collection examines how artists, filmmakers, and institutions have responded to European colonialism in Africa and to the ongoing presence of plundered African objects in Western museum collections. Harding discusses figures including philosopher Albert Camus and ethnographer Michel Leiris, and analyzes works such as South African artist William Kentridge’s Night for Day (2003) from 7 Fragments for Georges Méliès, contrasting Kentridge’s methods with those of Ghanaian-British artist John Akomfrah. He also considers the economic and social dimensions of colonial and post-colonial life through the career of Malian photographer Seydou Keïta, who began making portraits in the 1930s and later worked for the post-colonial government in the 1960s, noting details such as Keïta’s use of props including his Peugeot 203. A key institutional case study is Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, discussed in relation to the Congo Free State under King Leopold II (1885–1908) and the museum’s efforts to move beyond what Harding calls its origins as a “temple of racist kitsch.”

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