The essays in this book offer a fresh look at conceptualism from an African standpoint, and at issues of cross-cultural and trans-national aesthetics. All emphasize the importance of examining the reciprocal traffic of influences between Africa and the rest of the world. They offer a glimpse of the ways in which African and African Diaspora artists have interpreted and translated the aesthetic and social experiences of post-colonial Africa into new idioms of artistic expression and it is our hope that both exhibition and book will help bring the contributions of African artists in this understudied area to the fore.