This book provides a concise look at developments in the art, and art history, of Africa as well as its aesthetic conventions, artistic practice and genres. Kerstin Pinther writes engagingly about artists and workshops, the use of objects, performance practice and the significance of art in a courtly context. In current debates about coming to terms with colonial injustice, African art is increasingly reduced to aspects of violent misappropriation by Western colonial rulers. This panoramic look at Africa and its art gives us the opportunity to understand it’s art in all its complexity.