Where no art history exists, critical journals and other related platforms are crucial to moulding its discourse and involve all the intellectual processes that such an undertaking implies. In a newly developing field like contemporary African art, a critical journal should play a significant role in creating the very discourse of the discipline itself. Nka represents a step forward in that direction. It is an important initiative in the field of contemporary African and African Diaspora art, which has been neglected within the art historical debate. There is certainly a growing interest in the area of contemporary African and African Diaspora art and the modernist and postmodernist experience within this field. Yet most mainstream art periodicals have marginalised African and Diaspora arts in general, let alone the contemporary forms. The few journals which exist in the field of African art either focus primarily on the ethnographic and the so-called traditional or authentic art forms, or give a cursory and mostly superficial look at the contemporary forms. Hence, Nka serves as an urgently needed platform, filling a serious gap in the field. It would be right to say that it has in a short period placed contemporary African art in a global perspective and brought significant aspects of contemporary African culture to the awareness of the world. As a serious cultural medium, Nka has since its inception made an appreciable difference in the life and career of numerous African artists, especially those living in the continent who otherwise have little chance of receiving the visibility and support which they desperately need and deserve. It is the editors' conviction that Nka has made and will continue to make significant contributions to the intellectual dialogue on world art and the discourse on internationalism and multiculturalism in the arts. Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art is a triannual publication, twenty-three issues of which have appeared since it started with the autumn 1994/winter 1995 issue. Nka has established contacts and connections with African-based artists and art critics, academics, museums, galleries and other art related institutions. It is edited by three leading scholars, art critics and curators who are actively engaged in the field of contemporary African art: Salah M. Hassan is Goldwin Smith Professor and Director of Africana Studies and Research Center, Professor of African and African Diaspora art history and visual culture in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, and Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities, Cornell University; Chika Okeke-Agulu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Center for African American Studies, Princeton University; Okwui Enwezor is Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President, San Francisco Art Institute.