Recolonization of an African Visual Economy

Behind the door and to the viewers right hangs a dimly lit baroque painting of an angel wrestling with dark forces, while to the left one sees electric lighting fixtures, a floor lamp, and two striped cushions of the sort advertised in L.L. Bean"" summer catalogues. Like other economies, those concerning visual culture are characterized by three features: an organization of production encompassing both the individuals and the technologies that producé images; the circulation of goods or, in this case, images and image-objects; and the cultural and discursive systems through which graphic images are appraised,, interpreted, and assigned historical, scientific, and aesthetic worth...