Selected Writings, Volume 1

“This selection of Okwui Enwezor’s writings offers an intimate look into the beliefs that fueled his practice: those of plurality, fluidity, and openness. It is through these writings that we are able to stay the course of Enwezor’s incomparable vision and insist, as he did, on an expansive understanding of the world and all those who inhabit it.” - Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator, Studio Museum in Harlem

“In 1997, Okwui Enwezor reflected on the difference between the Johannesburg Biennale, the first major international exhibition of his career, and Documenta, pointedly remarking that we have ‘other priorities.’ This comment not only came to characterize that foray into the world of global curation but became the through line for all of his endeavors. As this volume attests, the stakes of Enwezor’s exhibitions were elucidated in their context and through his writing, which is inextricable from and yet also independent of them. He had a distinct historical, political, worldly, theoretical, and poetic rigor and love for the jostling of ideas, stories, and positions that would set the various fields in which he engaged in new directions through his singular momentum. These assembled texts reflect a lifetime committed to developing his voice, changing the worlds of art, and creating a new language with the intellectual heft, complexity, and dynamism to make a case for his presence and those he championed.” - Adrienne Edwards, Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Programs, Whitney Museum of American Art

"This two-volume landmark collection arrives nearly six years after the art world lost one of its most significant and admired curators. Spanning a quarter century, during which Enwezor transformed curatorial and critical thinking, these two books are essential for their decolonial frameworks, ‘diasporic imagination’ and ‘New African Art Discourse’, which underpinned his life’s project." - Marko Gluhaich, Frieze

"It is bittersweet to read these essays while wishing this searing, contrarian mind were still with us, still world-building, as we hard pivot into a new post-global, post-liberal era. ... The books elucidate the many tools and methods Enwezor developed throughout his career, encouraging us to see the contemporary not as a break from the past but as a complex storm of past histories, old habits, and new possibilities that surround and inform art." - Lauren Cornell, Art in America

“Enwezor insistently refuses to define Africa and its people negatively, as somebody else’s 'other.' Instead, his work constitutes a vitalist affirmation of present and future possibilities for the continent and its contemporary artists and art.”

"Books such as Okwui Enwezor: Selected Writings are a boon to future generations, making it impossible to forget or erase the foundational work that has been done. In a world ever antagonistic to the potential of African autonomy, it presents a rich set of primary texts for critically minded artists, critics, curators, and scholars. . . . These are crucial orienting points for those who remain committed to decolonial modes of contingency, entanglement, and rupture in the face of revisionist canonical narratives." - Oluremi C. Onabanjo, 4Columns

"Taken from us far too early, Enwezor’s writings are indispensable tools for those who want to continue the important work of reformulating the world of art with justice and equity in mind." - Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic

"The book demonstrates his optimism, his willingness to fight, and his youthful energy. Behind the writing, there was a man, always in a hurry, always busy with scores of ideas and projects, as if he knew the clock was ticking and he would not have enough time. . . . As in a musical variation, where a theme undergoes a modification such that it is more or less recognized as it changes in melody, harmony, or rhythm, here we see Enwezor's thought as a series of variations on ideas that are combined to varying degrees until the initial theme can become almost unrecognizable. That theme, ultimately, is himself." - Simon Njami, Artforum

"The two books of Okwui Enwezor’s selected writings . . . evidence a curator and critic living and travelling restlessly across the globe. Terry Smith has edited a volume of essays which can be understood as a collection of theory-in-practice." - Serubiri Moses, e-flux