Luminós/C/ity.Ordinary Joy: From the Pigozzi Contemporary African Art Collection celebrates the inaugural exhibition of the same name at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art at the Hutchins Center in Fall 2014.

Curators David Adjaye and Mariane Ibrahim-Lenhardt share their interpretative insights on a distinctive selection of objects from Jean Pigozzi’s superb Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC). The catalog includes introductory texts by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Jean Pigozzi and is illustrated with full-color images of the exhibition art from twenty-one artists of the African continent. It also features essays from Cooper Gallery Director Vera Grant, Newark Museum Curator Christa Clarke, and Studio Museum in Harlem Director Thelma Golden.

The works discussed range from photography of the 1940s to video produced some seventy years later, and together the essays reflect upon and explore the exhibition as “a critical thesis on the contemporary condition of the continent, one which sees the city as a device to explore the complexities and nuances of urban life.” A considered part of the full exhibition experience, the catalog offers the reader entry into these cityscapes and the brilliant light of ordinary joy.