African Art, Interviews, Narratives: Bodies of Knowledge at Work eds. by Joanna Grabski and Carol Magee (review)

This book is something of an adventure to read: while the artists interviewed largely—though not entirely—remain traditional subjects of the interviews and offer interesting accounts, anecdotes, and views on their artistic activity, the interviews themselves are also objects of examination, both as documentation and as art. Joanna Grabski and Carol Magee's work offers insight into oral history interview reflexivity by detailing the experiences of dispersed artists, museum curators, art historians, and anthropologists, who show how interviews can be used to generate new meaning and the ways in which connecting with artists and their work can transform artistic production into innovative, critical insights and knowledge. African Art, Interviews, Narratives provides scholars the chance to reexamine the role of the interviewer, interlocutor, and art historian when making printed text from recorded interviews.

The editors, Magee and Grabski, felt that the time had come for scholars of African art studies to examine how they use various forms of interviews as research tools to present their subjects and generate bodies of knowledge. Their goal for this text is to "reflect on what we do with the interview once we have it—how we put it to work" (1). The book is a product of conversations at a symposium, a conference, and even during a plane trip. It was triggered when panel members at a symposium observed that even though the papers were ostensibly about African artists and art, very little of what the artists actually said or did remained in the academic papers being presented.

The photos in the book are captivating, including the one featured on the cover: Abdoulaye Ndoye's Tribute to Moustapha Dime, 2002; they are discussed in the interviews with the respective artists. Also included is an appendix of the various interlocutors—all those who were interviewed or joined in the conversations. It is clear that the editors are seasoned in the practice of interviewing for the construction of knowledge: They discuss their interviewing methodology, and a close reading of the book indicates that the authors provided an in-depth description of interviewing while practicing reflexivity in the production of this knowledge; also, all the authors offer a clear methodology for conducting interviews and describe how their interviewees were selected. Chapters 6 and 11 outline the dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee in a nontraditional manner, where performance is injected into interviewing—the interviewer is the interviewee in chapter 6 and part of chapter 11.

The book opens with an introduction followed by eleven chapters that vary widely in their presentation of interviews as bodies of knowledge. The editors' introduction, "The Work of Interviews," presents an in-depth look at the need for further inquiry in understanding the role of interviews as research tools, and a considerable overview of how other scholars in the fields of art history, anthropology, and history have understood interviewing.

Chapters 1, 9, and 10 attend to the politics of authenticity and the act of giving voice in knowledge production. The first chapter, for example, presents some problems scholars run into when they interview cultural producers about visual works and offers the act of talking to both authors and viewers in order to understand the intent and interpretation of art as a technique—viewing has intention as well as serving as a form of authorship. Patrick McNaughton observes that when art is not accessible due to cultural differences it is not a problem but a resource. He uses his experience of interviews with a blacksmith to illustrate how unintended and intended knowledge can emerge from relationships with interviewees. Mary Jo Arnoldi, in chapter 9, discusses her interviews of multiple groups to identify the "owners" of the history of Malian masquerade. And in chapter 10, Christine Mullen Kreamer seeks to answer the question of who has the authority to speak for a group's identity or authenticity, by highlighting the shift in research methodologies...