Bookshelf

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Black and Gold: Transmutations of Metal and Modernity

By (author) W. Ian Bourland

| on special |

normal price: R 3 821.95

Price: R 3 439.95


| book description |

For centuries, Africa has been the center of the global trade in gold. Synonymous with wealth and power in African cultures, this precious metal was also central to the emergence of Europe’s colonial empires and the contemporary world made in their wake. Black and gold have thus always been conjoined and yet set in opposition: blackness as negation, gold as universal standard of value. Black & Gold is a genealogy of this seeming contradiction—a global history of value told through episodes of Black creative practice. Featuring the work of acclaimed contemporary artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Theaster Gates, Wangechi Mutu, El Anatsui, Chris Ofili, and Kerry James Marshall, this book unearths a series of historical and ecological connections—the mining of gold on the continent and its relationship to the diaspora, “black gold” as a colloquialism for oil, and Blackness as a form of cultural “gold.” By bringing early modern histories of alchemy, art, and colonial contact into the present, W. Ian Bourland tells a multifaceted story about the fetishization of gold, driven by an impulse to extract Blackness and refine people and matter into ever greater forms of abstraction with devastating consequences for the environment and humanity. In simplest terms, Black & Gold reconsiders the material and symbolic life of gold and the Black labor that has always sustained it. It will resonate with art critics and scholars, museumgoers and collectors, and anyone interested in modern and contemporary art, the Black Atlantic, and global histories of empire and culture.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Active
Publisher | Pennsylvania State University Press
Published date | 24 Feb 2026
Language |
Format | Hardback
Pages | 232
Dimensions | 229 x 152 x 21mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 145g
ISBN | 978-0-2711-0129-3
Readership Age |
BISAC | art / criticism
Expected | 24 Feb 2026

| other options |



Normally shipped | Forthcoming. We are not accepting backorders for this item yet
Readership Age |
Normal Price | R 5 169.95
Price | R 4 652.95 | on special |



| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

Broken Country: AMAZON'S BOOK OF THE YEAR - THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER

Clare Leslie Hall
Paperback / softback
320 pages
was: R 395.95
now: R 355.95
Usually dispatched in 6-12 days

An epic love story with the pulse of a thriller that asks: what would you risk for a second chance at first love?

Exiles: Times book of the month 'Stanley Kubrick meets MR James'

Mason Coile
Paperback / softback
224 pages
was: R 520.95
now: R 468.95
Forthcoming

A terrifying locked-room mystery set in a remote outpost on Mars.

The Correspondent

Virginia Evans
Hardback
288 pages
was: R 552.95
now: R 497.95
Available from overseas. Usually dispatched in 14 days


Theory & Practice

Michelle de Kretser
Hardback
192 pages
was: R 415.95
now: R 373.95
Available from overseas. Dispatched in aprox 4-8 weeks as local supplier is out of stock