Awards

• Winner of Winner, 2012 Nigerian Studies Association Book Award.

Overview

Why has the home of a Yoruba river goddess become a UNESCO World Heritage site and a global attraction? Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the world visit the sacred grove of Osun, Osogbo's guardian deity, to attend her festival. Peter Probst takes readers on a riveting journey to Osogbo. He explores the history of the Osogbo School, which helped introduce one style of African modern art to the West, and investigates its intimate connection with Osun, the role of art and religion in the changing world of Osogbo, and its prominence in the global arena.

Full Product Details

9780253356116

Table of Contents

Reviews

Osogbo and the Art of Heritage, informed by a wide-ranging and worldly intellect, is a boundary-breaking work. The research is interdisciplinary in scope, articulating art history with ethnography, performance and media theory, religion, and African studies. * African History * This book achieves a real sense of Oshogbo as a place.... [W]hat Probst has actually produced in this book is an ethnography that allows Oshogbo and its people to emerge as a very real presence in the formation of its own cultural narrative. * Leeds African Studies Bulletin * The Osogbo Osun Grove was designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2005, which, as the author explains, has had consequences for the global extension of the postcolonial Yoruba religion... Recommended. * Choice * [T]his monograph offers a refreshing interdisciplinary approach which will substantially reward the reader. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies * I heartily recommend this engrossing read for all scholars interested in contemporary issues of art and religion but especially for those interested in postcolonial studies, globalization, media theory, and of course, heritage. * Religious Studies Review * All in all, [this] book is a very fine account of African modernity in its various expressions. As such, it deserves a wide readership among students of art, religion, heritage, and the anthropology of Africa and beyond. * Journal of Religion in Africa * ... Probst goes beyond the textual surfaces of art history in Osogbo school art to give us the background noise and multiplex changing social and political contours that make for a meaningful understanding of the Osogbo experiment and its implications for the modern world of heritage designations and sacred sites in Yoruba and African art. Absorbing reading, it's as good as investigative reporting gets, and loaded with theoretical insights.July, 2011 * H-AfrArts * Not quite a history of Osogbo art... this book focuses on the role of a sacred grove as medium in a post-colonial Nigerian polity. Informed by contemporary critical theory, it makes an invaluable contribution to the interpretation of heritage and its visualization through various media. Illustrated with beautiful photographs, the book presents a wide range of arguments about the visualization of heritage and the visibility of the sacred... [T]his book provides a most rewarding read.August 2013 * Africa * Art historian Probst (Tufts Univ.) examines the concept of heritage, specifically in the context of Osogbo, a city in southwestern Nigeria renowned for its ancient Osun Grove--an area of trees, shrines, and the Osun River, the home of the Yoruba deity Osun--and for its gifted artists who constituted, in the 1960s, what is known as the Oshogbo School. The Osogbo Osun Grove was designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2005, which, as the author explains, has had consequences for the global extension of the postcolonial Yoruba religion. In his introduction, Probst considers the significance of this process from Oshogbo art to heritage from the perspective of art historians, anthropologists, and social theorists. However, his main interest is in explaining what heritage means to the residents of Osogbo--as history, as revitalization, as a project, a style, and a spectacle. In his discussion of the spectacular annual Osun Festival, he astutely considers the contested and competing interpretations of this event. He also addresses heritage as memory, captured by photographs that are subsequently used by Oshogbo leaders to mediate the Osun Grove's meanings to international audiences. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Choice -- E. P. Renne, University of Michigan

[T]his monograph offers a refreshing interdisciplinary approach which will substantially reward the reader. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies * Not quite a history of Osogbo art . . . this book focuses on the role of a sacred grove as medium in a post-colonial Nigerian polity. Informed by contemporary critical theory, it makes an invaluable contribution to the interpretation of heritage and its visualization through various media. Illustrated with beautiful photographs, the book presents a wide range of arguments about the visualization of heritage and the visibility of the sacred . . . [T]his book provides a most rewarding read.August 2013 * Africa * . . . Probst goes beyond the textual surfaces of art history in Osogbo school art to give us the background noise and multiplex changing social and political contours that make for a meaningful understanding of the Osogbo experiment and its implications for the modern world of heritage designations and sacred sites in Yoruba and African art. Absorbing reading, it's as good as investigative reporting gets, and loaded with theoretical insights.July, 2011 * H-AfrArts * The Osogbo Osun Grove was designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2005, which, as the author explains, has had consequences for the global extension of the postcolonial Yoruba religion. . . Recommended. * Choice * Osogbo and the Art of Heritage, informed by a wide-ranging and worldly intellect, is a boundary-breaking work. The research is interdisciplinary in scope, articulating art history with ethnography, performance and media theory, religion, and African studies. * African History * I heartily recommend this engrossing read for all scholars interested in contemporary issues of art and religion but especially for those interested in postcolonial studies, globalization, media theory, and of course, heritage. * Religious Studies Review * This book achieves a real sense of Oshogbo as a place. . . . [W]hat Probst has actually produced in this book is an ethnography that allows Oshogbo and its people to emerge as a very real presence in the formation of its own cultural narrative. * Leeds African Studies Bulletin * All in all, [this] book is a very fine account of African modernity in its various expressions. As such, it deserves a wide readership among students of art, religion, heritage, and the anthropology of Africa and beyond. * Journal of Religion in Africa *

A layered, rich exploration of the many and varied changes that have taken place in this significant Nigerian town. Robin Poynor, University of Florida Illustrates global issues with a very detailed and perceptive analysis. Henry John Drewal, University of Wisconsin, Madison

. . . Probst goes beyond the textual surfaces of art history in Osogbo school art to give us the background noise and multiplex changing social and political contours that make for a meaningful understanding of the Osogbo experiment and its implications for the modern world of heritage designations and sacred sites in Yoruba and African art. Absorbing reading, it's as good as investigative reporting gets, and loaded with theoretical insights.July, 2011 * H-AfrArts * Osogbo and the Art of Heritage, informed by a wide-ranging and worldly intellect, is a boundary-breaking work. The research is interdisciplinary in scope, articulating art history with ethnography, performance and media theory, religion, and African studies. * African History * This book achieves a real sense of Oshogbo as a place. . . . [W]hat Probst has actually produced in this book is an ethnography that allows Oshogbo and its people to emerge as a very real presence in the formation of its own cultural narrative. * Leeds African Studies Bulletin * [T]his monograph offers a refreshing interdisciplinary approach which will substantially reward the reader. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies * Not quite a history of Osogbo art . . . this book focuses on the role of a sacred grove as medium in a post-colonial Nigerian polity. Informed by contemporary critical theory, it makes an invaluable contribution to the interpretation of heritage and its visualization through various media. Illustrated with beautiful photographs, the book presents a wide range of arguments about the visualization of heritage and the visibility of the sacred . . . [T]his book provides a most rewarding read.August 2013 * Africa * The Osogbo Osun Grove was designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2005, which, as the author explains, has had consequences for the global extension of the postcolonial Yoruba religion. . . Recommended. * Choice * I heartily recommend this engrossing read for all scholars interested in contemporary issues of art and religion but especially for those interested in postcolonial studies, globalization, media theory, and of course, heritage. * Religious Studies Review * All in all, [this] book is a very fine account of African modernity in its various expressions. As such, it deserves a wide readership among students of art, religion, heritage, and the anthropology of Africa and beyond. * Journal of Religion in Africa * Art historian Probst (Tufts Univ.) examines the concept of heritage, specifically in the context of Osogbo, a city in southwestern Nigeria renowned for its ancient Osun Grove-an area of trees, shrines, and the Osun River, the home of the Yoruba deity Osun-and for its gifted artists who constituted, in the 1960s, what is known as the Oshogbo School. The Osogbo Osun Grove was designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2005, which, as the author explains, has had consequences for the global extension of the postcolonial Yoruba religion. In his introduction, Probst considers the significance of this process from Oshogbo art to heritage from the perspective of art historians, anthropologists, and social theorists. However, his main interest is in explaining what heritage means to the residents of Osogbo-as history, as revitalization, as a project, a style, and a spectacle. In his discussion of the spectacular annual Osun Festival, he astutely considers the contested and competing interpretations of this event. He also addresses heritage as memory, captured by photographs that are subsequently used by Oshogbo leaders to mediate the Osun Grove's meanings to international audiences. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -Choice -- E. P. Renne, University of Michigan

Author Information

Peter Probst is Professor of Art and Art History at Tufts University.

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