Álvaro Luís Lima

How does art come to terms with the end of a revolution? This project responds to the question by examining a historical moment marked by uncertainty, disillusionment, and the fear of Western hegemony: the end of the Cold War from the perspective of Mozambique, a socialist and newly independent nation. The period’s central voices constituting an ideology of art are examined to reveal a lively debate about the country’s past and future. At the end of socialism, complex ideological negotiation reinvented the very decolonial process while laying the ground for the establishment of artistic languages that would become globally known as “contemporary African art.” The project is a novel contribution to African art history for focusing on the decline of modern art rather than its peak.