'This is a brilliant and engrossing investigation into one of the more recent phenomena in the artistic heritage of one of Africa's great cities. Atta Kwami's systematic - yet deeply affectionate - documentation of an African modernism as it developed in Kumasi from the mid-twentieth century is both an intellectual tour de force and a visual feast. Kumasi Realism will help to ensure that the Black Star takes its rightful place in the world's artistic firmament.'
Chris Spring, artist and curator of the Sainsbury African Galleries at the British Museum
'To describe this as an essay in art history misses the point. It is instead a magical celebration of the visual worlds which illuminate Ghana's idiosyncratic second city and the master of ceremonies is the distinguished artist, Atta Kwami. This beautifully illustrated book takes the reader through the intricacies of the relationships between creative production and the galaxy of influences which make up the dazzling collages, the "artworlds" of the featured artists and designers. Kumasi is the inspirational star of the show - traffic jams and royal palaces, web-designers and goldsmiths, smart phones and strip-weaving. This is a great way to think about what modernism looks like in an African context.'
Richard Rathbone, Professor of African History, School of Oriental and African Studies, London
'The so-called great divide between an African modernism and continuing traditions of art-making still perplexes and unsettles many. Kumasi Realism is a substantial contribution to the debate, all the more so for being written by one of Ghana's leading practitioners; an artist of international standing, but whose focus here is firmly on the local. Atta Kwami is able to offer a detailed and comparative analysis of artistic production in Kumasi, while at the same time producing a substantial historical review of the ways in which visual culture developed along various paths to produce, "an evolving laocal visual modernity." This is an important, generous and beautiful book.'
Will Rea, Senior Lecturer in African Art History, University of Leeds
'Kumasi Realism offers an invaluable look at the interconnected art worlds of the academy and the commercial street. Through thick description, Kwami encourages a more capacious view of visual modernity, highlighting linkages between painting, photography, advertising, graphic design, and art history and challenging stale distinctions between high and low, academic and folk, tradition and innovation.'
Elizabeth Harney, Associate Professor in the Department of Art, University of Toronto and former curator of Modern and Contemporary African Art, Smithsonian Institution