Africa in Venice. The Present

This chapter introduces the African and Afro-descendant artists and writers who have been revisiting the African element in Venetian art, an element examined by Paul Kaplan in the same book essay. These authors are arguably making a fundamental contribution to the decolonization of the Western imaginary, of which Venice has long been an iconic component and they are also writing a new chapter in the history of Venetian cosmopolitanism, whose more idealized versions often neglect its least palatable elements to extol its tolerance.