DISCUSSION 1O INITIAL ARTS

Ch pter 1 African Art: Introduction Situating Contemporary \ ,

/ ~

•.__ .._ bffn a surge of intern! intllf tt'IIOd«ado. welt,.., ~ of Dmill9 pa> ~ts.Amajor rHson for this tum

lht!:,rk or co~P25)' ~tioifo~ttl!!R!II~) ~ ts ~!y due to tht_unp ct of: OllCt Sl~tedon the nw9i!!:S ........... -~llt

~-. phtnome~hat has mcludtd rtd ,,.. =II ,,...., · ~art on awo ·

and 1ft faia. a tht unprecedented lllf~ Ill . - ~ ~ ialf. To bt c\•u7tht apparent \irgns of the lntemati~1 Id

ractd Afrian artists and ot:Mn coucontuu that have so read1ly tmb the artistic competence of bt ttUill\lLfll ltss to• chlnge of htilrt lhout . . ada tatioll

:arg1~;':~!•:::r:!/:::n'"7:::;:;::thro~ghout

the lite 1980s and orly I990S. ..._ of the cwmit situation of global contem·[Vtif ..iallon 1ft' ,,..~ .. ~

""~ •rt ,omnliuM the Important ~f.lteopoutical ~,garuza· P~ ~ dthtloi'i of tht iwbal o~especuny in the J(ninoal nwlr.e~ an e d.lg,w networks of informatio'\technology. lmagH. and ideas. The uniiwi:,g of a bipotir system of polft'r fwther contributed to the ts·

llblislultnl of aseries of diall'ctical and historical reconfi~wat1ons that remapped the cultunl. political. and tconomic cimuts w~ch would haw a pG!aund tlfect on glob,llution in the late °'.'ntieth •~ eaily t,,tnty•finl centunn. During thu period. sewral m~or mtemattoiw. aJdhitions. in which the work of contemporary African artis_tS ~ fea1u1td. havt betn pivotal in framing lhHt artisli global visilnlity. O! thtst. 11tt ~tion Hoginv,s de lo trrrr. prganiud at the Centre Pomp,dou. Paris. by Jean-Hubert 11.irtln in 1989, is rightfully cited u - ~ad,~-nl \hit helped bruit the border of nwginality of Alrian irt1sts by prtsenting thtir work ilongside the work of theu lntmiabDNl pwr,

Since 1989, among the most imJ)!!rtant vtnlltS for the sllot!wing of cont,mporary African art are StYtral comprehensive exhibition ini• liitivts dtvtloptd ~usly and mid 1990s in sevtral African citiei. ThHf include the Dalt'Aii: Dair.a, 81ennw. Dakar (1992); ~nttu de y Pbot09riphlf Afrarne BieMiil. &mako (19941; lohanneshwg Bien• na •• Jolw.nnesbu1f[199S): rrudd.ition to older venues such u the~ ind Aleulldn. ~nnlalsand scores ol. wowbops across the African contintnt.

Whtt ~• SWisll14 of the Studio l!URIIII in Harlem organiz.td Cont,mporary Afncan Artists: Changing Traditions in 1990 at the Ve~ llifflnll, (• process that was then repriltd in 1993 at the wne venue. with a,lightly amended nomencYture. Fwion: Wm African Artuts at th, l\ollitt l1t11nol, by Suwn Vogt! of the l!useum for African Art, New York) the txhlbition of Afrla.n artists in Veniu matk.tcu furthtr e,o.

sion of boundaries 1n the •~pbon of contemporuy African att in the int•~tional cwatorial field. The lmld fo, tlw.Q!Qtorial rewiring of ~nttmporary African art on a global scale began to take root durin.9 lhti19~wi1lu-r1I signifiant txhibitions and multimedia works. Including J,/r1co Exp/orb: lath ~ntu,y African Art (1991),by Susan Vo­ .Gt! ilrld Walter £. van Beek at the ~ntti for Afria.n Art, New York. and the Ntw l!USfum, New York; Afnco Hoy(l99lj. by Andre Magnin at ~n­ tro Atwlta ~ Art• Hodemo; wn Stones About Hodem An in Africa (1995•96}. directed by Clementine Dellss and curated by Club Okeke• A;ula. s.i.h "-n, DaVJd Kololne, Wanjiku Nyachae, and El Hadji Sy at Wh1ttehapel Gallery. London. and Konsthalle. Malmo~ An Inside Story: Nrioz~ Art o/ Our nm"{199l},'1,y Yukiya 1'.aw~ at the Seugaya Art I!~Taiyo, and /n / Sight: A/nCflJlPhowgrophers. 1940 to tht 1'rrm:t (1996), by Octavio Zaya. Ohrui Enwuor, Danielle Tillcin, ml Cwt Bell at tht Guggenheim MIRWII. New York.

~ Liieother artists who welt '-•etici!lrles

of~ .rustre narratm, ""---'. ~~ '51! - the rise of biennials

-

~ when the Sfnfqalue fi~ratlvt$'1.11P.lor f rther ground was.,ro..,n .,_ btcUl!t! the,

....!/ So aiiil the Ni~ installation artist Mo ......,a ---e-­ Ousm,n~ w . uoW in the prestiglOIIS uhlbitlon Doatmenta 9 hr;t}Jri~ans to bt ind. artists ha~ paruci~ttd in all sub5equent (1992). Smet the~, Afri~nta IO, l l , 111d JI), which an ti.Id In Documtnta exhih1t1ons ~vt years. Tracing further the u11tctory of glo• Kassel. Germany. tvery o Alrlcan lrt1sU In

--~'b'tiOn activities and curatonal respon,n t bal e.uu t . --"'"'ti' m· ... e 1990s, ~ note such shows ast · le internanon,1 urau• ons u' mu tip Cameron at the Rrw Sofia. >Udrld, ~ Crocido y Cwdo (1994), by Dan . • and Jof~ Busca Otro Pou· Escoliu Afrimrws (1994). by Simon NJallll t Centr~ Atl&ntico de Arte Modemo, Las Patmu de Grin Canm.a. 1n

• African utists h.iw re;;uwly ap-addition to Venkt ind Documenu. b I ared in several other biennates: Gwan!IJU , Sydney, ~o Paulo, Ist•n u'

pt u--" s h ,......,,,.tlOn underscores Havana Ljubljana. Lyon. :ind ""w6 t.L IIC ,--,-

he. ' ble globality orAfrican artisu.Contnbuting to tht ex pan• ~on";:~iscursivt networks of the field. JOUfllils anil m,gazine~ iuc:h as MD: Journal ofCo11t,mpo10,y Afrimn Art llffllr Hi •t, Artl'brob, • nd Third Text have been leading critical lites dPVOted to t'£R m1tl[,9 on issues in contemporuy Afria.n art. Mo~ recently. Ill the wt decade. several significant exhib1bons. such as Th, Short Century: lndtpendenct and Liberation M!Mffltnt in Africa (2001), &nd Africa b:na (?004) .!!!_ft drawn even more complu articulations of the historical and contt~ rary issues related to Amcan cultural production.

These activities, along with num«'rous othtn lhlt IJt not Ust.d, have each contnouted to c;rysullizing nous scholarly and curatonal interest in the ~Id. With this new atttnllon, srw.r.il lm,po1u:.t shifts are immediately noticeable in the d1scumve orcwts of curatonal <'Ind historical ~luation of contemporary African art as • 6'ia'oTitudy. African artists aie not only more visible in the inslltutional cucu1u of musmns. ellhibttions. and art history; scholan m aha inftSting ttd: ous intellectual resowcn in rtstaiching and tuching the field. [mPrg ing scholarship in this field has produced doctoral d1S$tl'latlons and countless graduate thtSft. Most notably In u1ngle ~nerallOl). we h.lV't witnessed a broadening of the interpretive and curatanal model.\ fTom malgamated group uhih1t10ns to monographic nhlb!UOllS th.t explott the oeuvres of indiVJdual artists. Mor, museums and ma,or pnvate col• lttton now include the work of co11ttmpc,rary Afrlan arusu m their collections; key international exhibitions routinely feature u,, works; critia write about the arusts; gallene, exhibit ilrld represent them. Sotheby's and Bonhatns auction houses havt staged -Al~ _ sales exclusively focused on contemporary African art. ~ 1tst\l, a ._market Is emerging: the Johannesburg Art Fair was m:mtly trtablishfd: anew auction house. AnHouse. specializing m modem and contempo• rary Nigerian art. was Htahlishtd in Lagos. An ol lhew actJVlties Nff expanded the networks of mediation and rtception of tht divtrsely com• plex field of practicn '11d production. And With eiicb of these endnvon there Is no doubt that thu,elhodo\ogical tools of ailial appraisal !law benefited fto•tht 9ID'lflllg awareness of the worlt of ind1V1dual artuts or regions. This alls for a fresh ptllJ>«ti'lf and a n~ f11r ~ malytJ• cal lena toward the study of contemporary African art. This u the basic premise of_~nlemporory Africa" Art s,na 1980: to Orgl!UU a mucal anatyils of the ideas, concepts, objectives, and practicts which have shaped the field wt now IW'Vey.

What Is Conttmporuy African Art?

This project seeks to rta.flirm one ~t, point, which lies In Its title: ·contemporuy African art· 1mplm tht existence of an artu• tic: landscape of some coherence. one that has dbc~ duubility.

and which justifies the label. as applied to ~ works of those artists grouped under the various thematic rubrics that inform the sections of this book. But here we pause to refiect-pace the philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe-on •~ idea of Africa· that we are working with. We readily acknowledge that, fur some artists, being identified as an African artist may prove a disabling label in negotiating the boundaries of power that inform the entire global cultural complex. To a degree, the ve~ea of Africa'"lrlay be superficially_disablin9 to some artists. because Africa has often been represented more in terms of ~pistemological negatlo!Y to which ~ profit can be tabulated Qn the led9er of art1stic and cul- tural capital. Add to this the fact that for millennia, and in the media,

_Africa had" been interpreted as a marginal, limited sphere of artistic and institutional power; so it makes sense that some artists may fe.tl_uneasy with being identified as such. But only to a point, for there is also the

evidence of the works represented and discussed he(e-the fact that the.term contemporaiy African art has a historical basis on which our premise rests, and therefore the spur for serious analysis and engage- .ment by art professionals and the public alike.

To mark out a field is always to delimit a space of SUIVey. It is to draw a line, but nevertheless a line which, we hope, does not subscribe to rigid borders, outmoded hlerarchies,)or ~nthropological certainties. But as tends to bethe case in circumstances of diversity of archives, a delimited space cannot be subordinated to the logic of totalization or standardization. Rathe~~ted fietd-:-,Particutarly one with histori- fa\ complexities such as is presented in today's Afrira, is not a fiat field, but a series of shifting grounds composed of fragments, of composite identities, and micro narratives; in fact, it is u(epetit reci]')hat forms the methods of h~cal discourse. PierreBourdieu defines this as the

reversektendency ofover-identilica~to the point of an ;.55ential-Celd of cultural production'- in which diverse actors operate. He states: ism built on a sense of authenticit;y, which some African artists ~e seen to be laclcing either by tace, region, or dwelling.

In h h A'-' · I • licity' f l ow approK , owever, mca u a _!!IU tip o cu twal ~.

shaped by sod.II forces and political and economic conditions that do not privilege one way of conceptualizing an African identity. And in this framework iontempo Afri rt L I d •••-· f "'-~- tin'• rary can ~ '{IC U ~a ,......,e O ,.,,una g and productive contradictions which e.&Jiven debates on what it affirms and what it contests. More concretel~ontemporary African artdenotes a field of complex artistic production, research, interpretation, and a repository of rich intellectual discovery at the intersection of the shift­ ing models of cultural. political social, and epistemological analyses in which Africa is meaningfully interpel\ated. Here the connection to Af­ rica not only informs the understanding of the diverse types of artistic practices refiected in this book, it also applies to the very COIIIJ)lex mod-

- els of identity and ambivalent identifications of the artists who reside both inside and outside Africa; or who move easily between both.

But to convene a discursive landscape such as contemporary African art is not to blend these disparate sensibilities, cultural situations, his­ torical experiences. and politicized models of subjectivity and (!!bjectivi­ zation (that is the strategic positioning an artist adopts qua the field) into one unified frame of cultural identity. Instead, t~'iilea of African identity we employ is not an absolute, but ~alleableterm) It ~feJS to

lioth cultural and geographic situations, and to modes of subjectiviza­ tion, dimensions of identification, and ethical strategies. None of these are singular. A~ftican identitvcan suggest relationships as much to .. «hnic;-na.tional. aiid lingws"bc conditions, as to ethical, ideological. and

-1!.0litical strategies. tn African identity can be understood as part of a broad repertoire of pfactices, strategies, and subjectivities that link cul­ tural traditions and cultural archives. that subtend geocultura\ and geo­ political spaces, transnational and diasporic experiences. In this sense, there is no totalizing construct that defines the center of this project.

Against this baclcdrop, the term(_African•)mployed here is ~pa­ cious. It accommodates slippages, illl:omjileteness. eccentricities, idio­ ~ncracies. and ambivalences. It ~ofto be understood in ethnocentric. national, regional. or even continental terms alone. b~t as a(!t~f positions, affiliations. strategies, and philosophies that represent the multiplidty of cultural traditions and archives available to and exploited consistently by the artists to shape their artistic positions in a way that reflects the diffuse repertoire of artistic forms and concepts which we designate as conte~rary African art. At the same time, the term 'M· rican• is als~emporal in particular in the way it engenders or disavows emotional attacnme~ in the present. It ~t the shape of Africa in the world today. Each of these positions, on their own or in combina­ tion, defines the state ofcontemporary mean artln the twenty-lust 'century] More importantly, for our critical purposes, i!_!s how these formulations shape the understanding of an archive of practices that

~ \ Ieflects this multiplicity in the.Clll71teliij!_O:rary art of Africa. As we argue ,r' , )' throughout the book. the rincipal goal ,Uontemporacy African Art

11, r 'I;

1 ' ($,fl '- since 1981}.is to delimit as e c 1storical datum, one in which artis- _tic works, conceptual strategies. and fo~I procedwes can be coher• ently organized. At the same time, t~e goa.,!)s to reveal-through the

- ==c._ ._.:f The;~l~dJ~~ is the area par..,.,,.,"" ordash•• betw..n the

dominan omlrwit cws. w1'iol!g1if th•11 _,., lft ptnon but _.. oltentfuougb~oMnt!dlOWllnudtfeniinoJ tJwu ,.,..,.w ..tisfyl1>9 1htir ·taste,·. amt tn<"doodll,ttd haction.s who ia b>ully lrt'fOlftd in thu struggl•.

"'!hr, connrct brings about th• Integration In • single fiolAI or tht v•~ous socially sptdJllull-n,~i., maibu whlth ""<omplttelJ s,pu11, ln social andfftn googl'ij)hial spitt, • w!uch tho dilftr•nt lractio,u of tht domln1nt clus WI

find poiaocu ..i1osttd to thtu wtes. ~the, UI tho 1ht1u.. in pain11ng. t.slllon.

or decoration.'

Thus th~~the recognition of tbe PliRenc• of thidield and its historical implications for the ana\y$is of African art in gen­ eral. Though we have chosen to limit this overview to a specific time period-the last three decades-we do so both in response to the large corpus of artimc work covered (more than 150 artists), and also in rec­ ognition of the dilrersity of the critical stakes within the art-historical development of African art studies in general In other words, l'!l: aim both fouemporal s~city (since 1980) and disciplinary clarity (con­ temporaiy African art) in or~'«.t!!t..fruitful linp between the three decades which.this ov-eooew covers. We take the approach that 1<> understan.d the wow re11resented here from the periods covered .r_equires the articulation of the surrounding historical atmosphere, the conditions.oi.pro~on, and the cultUial, political, and epistemologi-

_ cal !Pgacies a£ postc.olonialism that surmount almos!,!11 the works of art. discu.ssel:!. throug_houUhe course of the unfolding analJ&s. Nevertheless, our aim ~~ make contextu.alist points, but.,to show now social, po­

litical, and..economi<;_events of the last thirty years-from postcolonial critiques of the state form and neo-liberalism, to responses to globali­ zation and the severe austerity measures of recent periods, the reform movements of democratization, state failure, migration, exile, the rise of political Islam, and the struggle against apartheid-~ all profoundly ...... affected and re.sltajled.the field of contemporary African cultural and

..artistic production.

As we have already underlined, since the early 1980s many African artists-El Anatsui, Y-mka Shorul>are, YtoBanaaa, BerniSearle, Ouat­ tara Watts, William Kentridge, Chris Ofili, David Adjaye, Nnenna Okore, Moataz Nasr, Odili Donald Odita, Meschac Gaba, Tracey Rose, Marcia Kure, Marlene Dumas, Wangechi Mutu, Ghada Amer, Julie Mehretu. Georges Adhgbo, Romuald Hazoum~. Cheri Samba, etc.-have come to global 2rominence and h,iY~been positioned at the forefront of critical debates Qf contem.J>Or.uy art. Scholars have devoteoserious and focused atten• .lion to the study of these artists' diverse experienm ~d works. In addition, a historical rereading of modem African art• has reinvigorated the assessm'ents of the work of contemporary African artists in light of

modernity-and, by enension, the links to traditional African art-and broadenedeach of their critical horizons.• J,IC!fe re~nt.1¥, with younger scholars doing art-historical, rather than ethnograp~. research on contem_poraiy artists, the study of contemporary African art has become a core area of academic inquiry in African art-history scholarship. As these studies expand the available data on practices and discourses, the

IJield has been imbued with forms and methods of theoretical, aesthetic ~d social analysis of a new history of the artsin Africa. ·

Chapl et I I 11

When Was Contemporary African Art? While curatorial practice and related activities have engendered new

ciztuits of interpretation and a reordering of the discourse ~f contempo- African art, until recently the field was an area of considerable de­=- One such debate concerns the ~e..Dl~, namely, when

did contemporary African art emerge? Did it emerge as ac?n.sequence of the • . of traditional African art due to colonialism? Or IS it because of u::Sncounter with new pararugms of artistic production gener~ted by Afrian responses to European modernity? To pose ~hese questions reveals some confusion if we take the most common dictionary defini­ tion of the term ·contemporary" purely as an event of the present, that which belongs to or occurring in the present, distinctly apart from that which is viewed as belonging to the past, to a historical epoch. However, this does not get us to the place at which we can utter the phrase "con• temporary African art" except as adistinguishing trope that separates not ~eriods or categories of time,' but artistic s sand g~es-~-

l Smithjives us a useful guide, stating that temJ>ora.xy arty art pre• ~upied with ~ .i<iuthur Dant on ffieother hand, sees contemporary art, in its ever increasing sensa of ti~e~ess, _as post,hi,torlcal..as aliDeration ftom. the succession.of histoncal penods bound to style~ SJJrith and Danto'a\e<;;"ot .9uite saying the same thing; the former is stricUy con.c.emed with-questions-oUemporality, while the latter focuses on the ca.esura olhistorical periods.

But can these twoJnt..erpretations help define.what we_m_!an ~ ­ temporary when used strictly in analysis applied to Afrig? The answer, generally, i~ye~ especi'!)lv.-if-w ~~ a!!j!)Jhe era of Colonialism7 andln encounters wilh~opean modernit . eflexively~ encounter with categories of time and amarch toward post~historicai ~ where traditional styles.no lDnger designate the aesthetic .91ordinates of artistic production. At the same time, we..can als<) see-the funver~ of traditional style~ and t'Ontemporary paradi~ as occur:ring ~the same time, but with l,wo distinctive thrusts\ one reflecting its c~c; tion to a historical past, the other establishing its se aration.from.that ~- In this sense, ilJ ~pital-of .usessments of ontempor African a{Uo-ar,alyie.iLas a~ of mismatched ~ -!.Procesu, brico- lage upon the already existing structureund scenarios on IYhi.i:h older, precolonial and colonial genres of African art were made.•7 ~e o! fl!iro/~ould seem to privilege practices throWJ1 together irrespec­

..ttve ofclear concep_tual and philoso~hical distinctions. However, the combination of successive historical periods, formal st,les, and genres ~eld, at least, to both Smith's contention of temporality and Danto's 1de~ of ~ end 9f styles. If we are tq usefully bridge the philosop!!i£aJ ~~ctions betwttn ¾1ith an=, we ~~ha~ ow that, at a rmrumum,oontentPorary African ~~lth.e en f traditional ~ts (seemingly precoloni<ll) and at the end.of colonialism; that is to say, that ii,? conditi~ist•DN' in the pi:esent is postcolonial. But is Kasfi(s refmnceJ_o fu:i.pLagO claim for the postcoloniality_;i"contem­ porary African art? Not::fil!!!!:.as we will see.

The Ethnographic Museum and the Museum of Art With the competing claims of the past and the separation of the

present ftom it, the discursive landscape of contemporary African art

has been shaped according to the struggle between two fields of knowl­ edge that have addressed its content through different and diverg t approaches. During the pastlo~s, much of the debate that :enn• tered o~ the ~sb~ f art in~fticv,il pla~uiilwo piincipfil. arenas:'\n the ethnographic museu and in hunuseum of a , 1 th ~--t h . ~ ::"':==~~- n e= arena, sc olars and curators oftell.lllad.eJittle..distinction.betw.efll contem~rary art and works that ate 'llQ!UpJ)ropria!ely craft, such as( pottery malting, ~asket-weaVU1g, clq~th-~,.illll..19}(..design.• It is· unportant to point out here that (ht •era • does not n . de t 'nf , . - ~ essan1y

no e an I enor practice t~ temporary_an, But it sh Id b- . ognized that th~-:; . ou e r~ dis . •= ~~cr~ve processes operate in distinct . rurs1ve systems and circulate.in.different cultural economies namei\­ ~~~e mar~_t for s~uvenilj_a~t_arian ma_!:ria\ on the one hand, '¥

in.exbihlliQn crcu1ts of the contemporary art gallery and systems

12 JChtptu 1

f ... •nd ethnography on the other. We in no way infer in of museums o ..,,._.... .,_.. • E the ~ircuit of the museum a superior sphere of ~u\tural reception. ven • · · , th ••,. of not constructing a false hieratchy between art andif 1t IS ,or e ...,.e .. ~ . . . craft-a distinction thathas lon~devile• the.reception of African art

• • ~ -theoretical and formal distinctions often made between in genera . . . ·-'-'b. · d a.l'.eas of practice and the diverse systems of dIStnbu_aon. o:.uu 1tton: an reception in which the materials operate can sometimes be misleading and ill serves the artists themselves.

This is not to say that there have not been moments when craft. artists have brought aesthetically complex and conceptually sophisti­ cated artistic genres into the field of contemporary ~-Take, for example, the work of the Ghanaian.C.offin-maker Kane Kw , whose elaborately scu~simultaneously with SWTealist dis­ junction ana'makes references to commodity fetishism in contt,mporary .AkaluY,ttems of funeraiy decoration. Or the way an ~st like El Anat­ sui~eft!Y exploits handiaaft. to arresting conceptual erul5. Or consider another example, ~~s'geometric abstract wall pamtings according to gaditionall!debele architectural wall decoration that was transm1ttecUll>thlo gallery spaces and to BMW cars. Th, fact that.the seyarate works of these artists-one positioned as a craft-maker. the other repeating and extending the patterns of a decorative tndition, and yet still another conventionally an artist-have, in tum, attracted the fascination of the ethnographic museum JS no doubt based not m,rrely on their contemporary aesthetic merit alone, but also on their seeming transparent ethnographic guality which, on the one hand, lin\cs the work of the craftsman to the popular desires of the everyday Ghana­ ian and on the.other to the popular taste for exoticization that pervades .the..ethnographic reception of contemporary African art. With Kwei, the public for African material culture can simultaneously indulge in a bit of ethnographic surrealism and in Mahlangu and Anatsui, a mediated view of decorative arts and contemporaiy African art.

Until recently, the ability of the ethnographic museum to wield dis· cursive authority over objects, practices, and meaning was overwhelm­ ing. This made it a formidable discursive site of the artistic field. and the primary locus of curatorial interpretation. Granted, the ethnographic museum was operating largely unchallenged in this way, because the museum of art, as such, showed little interest in the category of con­ temporary African art, a fact adumbrated in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition "Primitivism· in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal o.nd Modern in 198-4. However~cent years the discursive authority Qf the ethnographic museum, and the interpretive power it wielded- __,/ , have been eiodeobytl\e emergence of contemporary curatorial projects functi_!>ning_in the artna of the museum of art. Consequently, a remark• ~e ~ ratorial attention ~nd Jts fo~ contemporary art h~ made th•

.!_emll9rary, la.tge-scale exhibition model in art museums the indisputable a.tena for the theoretical and historical framing of contemporary African ~- As Sidney Littlefield Kasfir notes, "blockbuster shows have greatly influenced _the mainstreaming tendency"" of contemporary African art. Much of this debate, in which the ethnog~ruc museum and the curator oTanthropologyjiave had_to share~istemological space,with the cura­ toror&-ntempo~ art-a\ld the institutional name of the museum of

..art-even tf there 1S.little.common ground between them in terms of the vocabulary that shapes their respective projects"-has occurred in the last thirty years, a period that also witnessed the increased visibility of conte_mporary African artists in the global scene.

~~ ~echang_ing_stakesJn the critica.\ grouria'occupied by African rtists)lobally, the discursive challenge of this · ct b

2.1!1'.rdlexive pmn'>- • th ::,. PIOJe ears on~ t • •~J lfl ~sp, we explore what constitutes the •con- emp~r~ and.how it is defined and.theorized;'Se<:ond, we'"·'·- th

term Africa~ without male' • - =""',..e e to the term (we fo . mg a_pp~!ations of ethnic origin essential

cus mam\y on how artists are located "thin th \ar context of African art studies)'Tuird--. . WI e ger been anal zed by th ' 'we exanune the way the term has is from th! rt o er scholars and explore how distinctly different it - a we are concerned with· and f " ing the central arti • . ' Ourtn, we.locus on identify-

P ct.Pants m the makin f th practices help generate and ha 9 °_ e 6eld, and how their

s pe the meaning of what is identified.

\

Archives of Traditions A caveat to keep in mind: the task at hand is not to argue whether

these four points exhaust the possibilities of how to frame the argument of contemporary African art. Instead, we seek to address the provenance of the ideas and the overlapping discourses, as well as the surround- ing historical and analytical architecture that subtend them. Also, our critical task is narrower, and in large measure more pointed. because it is oriented to the present, e~if the period covered has traces in the past. The limit in our tem11oral frame is the postco/onialTa- point meant

to articulate the temporal and theoretical~hness of our chosen dec­ ades. What is immediately clear, and not surprising, is the consistency of the formal, political. aesthetic, and cultural connections between the concerns of the artists and the questions of African contemporane­ i!}I that follow them. In this way, there is no need to seek to revivify expired authenticities, nor to mourn the death of autochthonous tradi­ tions. If there is any immediate dispute undertaken here. it is querying the ,notions of aiiOienticify and autochthonism as the means by which ~ can }lOmiiiate <rtOTitemporary work of art as African1 We recognize that notions of the authentic and the autochthonous have in the past provided a level of comfort for historians reluctant to perceive African

_artists in the present, as part of the modem and contemporary world." To therefore spuk..conaetely of contemporary African art disturbs a series of ~ytical assuml!_tio~about the state of African art today­ one being the ~nature of African cultures1 which su_p_ports the idea ota timeless African tradition.

We purposely make clear that our inquiry is made in the tension be­ tween contemporary artistic archives and the way they are imagined in the deep wells of cultural traditions. But we deviate from the lubricious tendency of forever linking them in historical causality. It is quite obvi­ ous that the reading which constantly illuminates either the presence or absence of tradition in modem and contemporary African art is a histor­ ical problem, one that is more connected to writings about forms of art and that directly resists those boxes either by stubbornly being hybrid, ironic, or allegorical. But we do not subscribe to the staged binaries between tradition and the contemporary, nor intoxicated by the stunted fetishization of tradition while l;?ntemptuous of the contemporary as the British educatof William Fagg\(lid when, in the 1940s, he lamented: -We are in at the death of all that is best in African art...# lJ at a time when African artists were vigorously en~ing-mod.emism.

We do not resist the term.-'.'_traditional African art.~ which..represents a storehouse of powerful artistic achievements that continue to exert influence beyo.nd Africa. But we are less sanguine about the. claim that traditional art is the end of achievement in the African creative cycle. To us, tradition-_in_the best and most rigorous employment of the term­ never designates a state of cultural stagnation. Nor does itpromote a fixed point of historical stasis in a,n endless cycle of repetition and mimicry of the past. Rather, tradition l\)Yays has a forward motion to it. and with that constant. dynamic pitch into the future. many compet­ ing forces of change and transformation converge; multiple contending issues of rupture and discontinuity emerge; new and surprising, even contradictory ideas appear or are constantly created a.s forms., images, objects, narratives, and styles. 'l)'aditioo, in fact, denotes the continuous _!!s)w. cbangf, transformation. e90!ution, continuity. and discontinui!Y that enlivens and strengthens the archive of all cultures. It is in this condition of .d_ynamism',lhat we speak about the archives oLtraditions.

In Contemporary Africon Art since 1980, we find ourselves actively immersed and engaged in the archives of new traditions of artm.lking and discourses. Tbese..al~u11port the term (aintel"!!J.)o~ African art.1 They are.part.of it:J normative architecture, of its ongoing tiadi• tions oi thought. To think of contemporary African art as needing to be part of a timeless AfriWI fraditl1m ts to ignore the fact thaLml!ltiple historical tventsJn the African context have led to new forms of knowl­ edge, fresh ways of conceiving symbolic andstructural frames, and that, for centuries. African societies have adapted to constant change both through internal and external forces. To that end. for contemporary African art tl\ere are no ancienlDYeJbeds to excavate in order co find

-'Q_ntinuing__traditions. And no stran~tion tha.Ueaves t:he.att.:. _ists and their work at the mercy ~~aning, but ultimately wrong­ headed, interpretations that lead to binary distinctions such as tradition and modernity, .)l'estem and African, center and periphery, vernacular and academic, urban and non-urban, indigenous and diasporic models of

identificati9n. We take it as a given that-contemporary African art-lilce contem­

porary art generally-is always ina~te of creative reinvention and ,..reima9l!l~And while w~make note of the ravages of aolonia~ on

(African cultures and institutions, we also acknowledge the importance of artistic exchanges that have marked the transition frdm colonia1-,to postcolonial subjecti~ which in tum- occasioned the responses of African artists to the colonial event. From this standpoint, we take a

·more penetrating interest in historical events, especially as explicated in the views held by many commentators who constantly insinuate that contemporary African artists lost their authenticity because of colonial disruption. forty years ago, as ethnographers were bemoaning the loss of authentic African traditions in the work of contemporary African art• ists, Jacqueline Delangund Ehilip Fry were correct in pointing out that:

The concept of •traditig__nal" culture'often hides a negation of the primordial openness of many African communities during the pre• colonial _period. If we admit the existence of widespread exchange dur­ ing this period, attempts to think in terms of •closed communities· and ·tribal styles"'will have to be much more prudent. The fact is that we know very little about the exchanges and the creative processes that gave rise to the tnditional arts in Africa:'while many may inquire into this background, very few are sufficiently concerned to look at contem­ porary works, much less to take them seriously .... As important as this [traditional art) may be, it is high time to notice that Africa is ilive and

in movement. A dialectic at acceptance and refusal. of give and take, always mifies colonial and neo-colonial situations."

These are obvious points, and we do not disagree with them. When we survey literature on contemporary African art, especially those pub• Ii.shed in the 1960s and 70s (a notable exception in this regard is Ulli Beie(s thorough assessment published in Conrempora,y Art in Africa). and recent ones in tlu! 1980s and '90s, a schism between the analyti­ cal prudence undertaken by Delange and Fry and an ethnographic focus appears that underpins the argument of.some of the other Sfholarship. That etlmog_raphic focus tends to fix ethnocentric aura around Af- rican art. Such an aura is fundamental to the categorization of African arts, not in relation to inventive individual aesthetic systems and the influence of those systems in the development or styles, or the formal aevlations from them, and the invention of new paradigms and con­ cepts. but in terms of tribes and ethnic formatiol)S. for instance, one can read the deployment of a category such as "Art of Black Africa" as ... a general case of the [Acialization of artistic production. Though such a category may be punting to us since ·black Africa" extends beyond the ·sub-Saharan· areas. it is nevertheless explainable since it defines the narrow outlook of ethnographic writing and the cult of traditional culture.

At another level. this i.s a superficial boundary because it ignores the transnational situation of African artists wotking under contemporary conditions in which ethnic or essentialist.4dentifications are hardly the locus of critical consideration. African artists have been working inter­ nationally~ince th early twentieth century. One important example of

the transnational reception-of aitlstic styles is the tradition of Scu.wia under-glass.painting gel)le, which entered Senegal- artistic archiY,es in the nineteenth century from the Middle £a.st when it was brought back by Muslim pilgrims returning home from the Hajj in Mecca. Equally ger• mane to ow discussion is the partjdpiltion ofsuch artists as Aina Ona• bolu, Mahmoud Mukhtar, Ernest Mancoba, Gerard Sekoto, Ben Enwonwu, Gerard Sekoto, Iba Ndiaye, Ahmed Cherkaoui, and Gubia Sirry in dis­

courses of modem and contemporary art internationally since the 1920s. More recently, William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas, Yinka Shonibare. Julie Mehretu, El Anatsui, Ouattara Watts. Wangechi Mutu, Odili, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Pa.seal Marthine Tayou, Sokari Douglas Camp,Ousmane Sow,

Chaplet I I 13

1

all been operating a~bal Fode Camara, Kan-Si, and others, have tric encirclement; They ha~ ,_,., ..(u,out the strictures of etliiiocen African art)nll contempo~ ~- · · the tensfoo btmeen - • ~ach been exa1111rung . ,_..i demand contemporary styles, 111

fomu; and have been ~oing soi;:: oric settings, thereby bringing cosmopolitan. transnational, an p hie discourse.

new insight into the deb@mb~~::~~~oncep~ Yet, as we challenge . lhno_g p ..soiu~smlssal of the value of

1of African a~. we do h~s ~ate ~ ~gabprovocative points oflntetlectual th=raphlc research in i 1ununa . ake

e ..., • tart ill instances where aI!iStS m and aesthetic convergence-particu . y f Afri n arf'nd•contem-

·ous decisions to align the classical past It!_ ~ ·JU_"' J

'.!nso To~, example, in the 1980s the late Nigenan-BntiSh pho­ _pora,y • •. R timi Fani-Kayode produced a series of works reflect• tographlc arnst, 0 I • t in images mg the tension between the contemporary and the ~ asstca .es of the sta ed as hermeneutic responses to the powerful artistic legao ~cansculptural past. ln such works as Sonponnoi_ (1987), Bronze Head (1987) Dan Mask (1987), and Ebo Orisa (1985), African masks, sculp· tures, ~bjects, and ceremonies were deployed as metonymic structures ill a strategy linking tradition not only to Africa but :tso to the _West. Similarly, the Cameroon-born, Dutch-based artist Angele Etoundi Essa• mba has explored similar issues in relation to African masks in a senes of photographic tableaux; as has Sokari Douglas Camp in her figurative welded metal sculptures that reanimate the cultural ntuals of Niger­ Delta riverine areas of Nigeria; and as Yillka Shonibare :,vorks with _the . unmasking of the seeming authenticity of African textile _and the_1t1~1111- nation of its colonial origin. Oladele Bamgboye's double video pro1ect1on, Homeward-Bound (1995) articulates similar conceptual ideas in relation to ideas of past and present, home and diaspora, culture and exile. Ouat­ tara Watts's large-scale postmodern paintings, which appropriate the texture of African mud wall paintings and transpose architectural frag­ ments evoking the classic frames of Dogon building faQades, remind us of the generative plentitude of the archive of traditions. Ousmane Sow's powerful figurative sculptures, at the level of dramatic tableaux, reveal a sensibility towards the venerative and the iconic in the depiction of tra­ ditional figures. Obiora Udechukwu's paintings deftly reanimate the sen­ sitive tines of the !/Ii painting tradition of southeastern Nigeria, in much the same way that Odili Donald Od.ita's zigzagging geometric abstraction recalls the traditional Ndebele wall paintings of Mahlangu, as do the references to Fante flags that suffuse Atta Kwami's geometric paintings, the calligraphic mark in the paintings of Rachid Koraichi and Ibrahim El Salahl, or Romauld Hazourne's assemblages of masks constructed of discarded plastic vessels, which cite carvedAfrican masks. All of these artists sta~e their works in the gpssingJ!!twee~ and appro­ priatioi\)citationand recuperailg)i. Theil works dep)o3, through ima_ges and.objects, situations of the contem,e_orary conceptio~ of African°ai'J as a ~ beyond ethnograpliic fantiSY).

Despite lively exchanges in the work of the aforementioned artists, in which ~ntempotary con~a~ies are emplo.yed to stage a relationship to tradition, the'ethn~viewof the.flQUndering a!tist unm.QQt~ from the past, due to a supposedlyJ.~ened_!jpl< totradi­ tionalart, remained for some time in several respects. This view had a discursive pattern, and generatedpeculiar types of argumentation that tended to ignore the contemporaneity of the artists. At the risk o~a­ boringfte issue. we wish.to eumine !!!sol!le depth o.ne. exam~ of an ethnogrilJ)hically _!oow:ed critical c•.Jlgctign which we believe to be an overly alar:mist view of~e 4~ftraditions of Africa) In his boolulfri,­ con Ar~lhe.J'eal'! ~ince 1921>i,J!ar!~ijl~oregrounds paternalistic grumbling, laced with bracing sarcasm, to1orus on tli_e ide~ of a disap­ Pe:1-ring "'1!1~while minimizing the ~ plei: artistic experiments being develQJ)ed by contempora:cy..Africa~ states:

!.odiJ tlw"'"~od••eio~ ' tin• state of RW<, Jiuiwiy,. 1111cQ Ulfl h,,. •lrudy al.most !li!!_nJt9rat ;.-g~~~=i ""'11ng!J cll/6cnl& wBull .Otlst,-,<t,o l!O..J!..ox!><TllJ..[n .~';;~'-','., Oft,n tile la$l s,jll,d CR!uman. !I lllll •Uv., is i.o Gld

IO~ th.tt thtir-i",e CTIHI• OJld ••lfth/wpa,odies ofaaditiQ/laLsa,1/ltUle..jOur,mpii.w]."

1, I Claptu 1

t from Fagg's, it should be noted, was writ- This slightly updated eu ogyaft th st"gnificant emergence of contem-

1decades er e ten in 1973, sever~ th ld stage ,. and two decades after de-

Afri artists on e wor • . . wrltin porary can . Id be-hard.to find any serious cntic g colonization. ~ . rt wou artists in the mid 1970s having

k of contemporary European , on the wor . k th disintegratiorr of Western culture as haV109 a recourse t~mvo_ e e t arde art or about European artists

-:--:- ct Western avan -g • negative unpa . on_ les of their "ancestors: we understand the no longer workmg m the.stv ·t rovides us with a primordial handle

recourse to a::~o~~:~:~t~r!. However, framing the art of contem­ on the ::te artists around the dialectic of a wholesome past and a porary can nt does i.s a common trope, without iiony degenerating present, as e:'..... .:. --•~ •f the ifegeneration of skill and full of self-assurance.~ .,. . b ta·

-: .- - 1 ty! :::-, Mount sets up a hoary argument which, to e 11and traditiona s es, . • · Is t iieaianot originate. His scheme begins with what 1S catt~d sUMva_ o traditional styles,. which offers some sort of elegy, In this et~y, s;~~ atetaken against foes of traditional art. Artists who are unab to their supposed ancestral calling lead the list and are severely brought to book. ~ief lnne~ Edo sculptor worlcing in the ~ urt o~ the Oba of B . . . excoriated in typical style: "Chief Inneh s work in the rounderuno1S, 1S • f th few is seen in his portrait of the deceased Oba Eweka a. It u one o_ e recent works executed in the traditional bronze... The casti,ng,u cruder than the ancient works and the fitting of surfaces and details u con• siderably more inept,"" Mount concludes. But if artists like Inneh have failed in animating their ancestral obliga tions due to the degeneration of artistic skills, he was not entirety at fault, because he had been.abet ted by the "elite Africans• who have similarly abandoned the traditional ways of the1r ancestors, and no tonger appreciated traditional sculpture.

Deskilling as a~ c~u..of Inventing Contemporary Art '{h~adllenLof urOJlean avant-garll~rt in the early twentieth

~tu!Y accrued from e conscious artistic strategies of desltilling the IJ!9.!!_acadernic styles ~twere part of the domin~l taste of the bour• ~.isie Ill!..until the nineteenth century. The artistic salons of the tat, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the battlegrounds for the artistic reinvention of the skills of the modem and contemporary artist. In theorizing thU!igin ofe,ntempowy African am there is somethfu.g of critical value to be extracted from the idea that the degeneration 2f tra@;ional Styles as a result of the emergence of co'nremporary art meant the death of the great traditional arts of Africa. One co11ld atgue therefore,~otof contemporary African art),outside of po~tco­ lonial temporaU~ lies in its attempt to ~ate itself from the. s.lrilted competence of the tr3-altionat artist/ craftsman)in a self-conscious proc ess of ('eslcilling°:'Y The advent of the craftsmen laying down their tools alt over Africa may, in fact, have historical parallels to the breakdown of institutions of patronage and authority that traditional art ~ e en-_

j oyed and served. This, indeed, is one part of the historicist argument of scholars lik(MoWlt) Such arguments, however, are developed not as a way to put fo~analytic frame around artistic experimentations, reception theories, cultural exchanges, and cha.nges in the conditions of production, institutions, publics, and aesthetic protocols. in light of which a new insight into the motivations behind contemporary African

art could be gained. None of these issues seems to bear on the interpre­ tation of the artists' work. What it revealed instead, was not necessarily a deep love of l:raditiona!.._art, but ~ontempt for co~mporary Afflcan­ art as-a fielooflnte\tectual v~On this account, Mount had aword or - two of confident generalization and condescension for African "elites· whom, be supposed, played a rote in the negative desltil\ing of tradi­

~tionat art: "ha result of generations of indoctrinations the attitude of today's African 'elite' sometimes contributes to, rather than arrests, this disappearance of tradili_Qna sculpture.·11

In other words.(lhe elite d become co temporary, ut not_l!y_ ch.01

ce . b colonial 1ndoct~tion. The pom African thinkers and art1Sts un s od precisely the complex historical pro'blems and

~~~brO'Ught about by colonial modernity. and had been respondin~th~m tne )1Elctice of arfseemed far-fetched in the

conceptio~of contempo~Afrkan art~on-inspired an:.,,as lhe category employed byMou~to describe~stitutionalfzatton­ cum-indoctiination._o~ arti.sU,as promoted by Cliristian missi;J schooiJ and as a part of the architecture of colonial processes of conver­ ~ion. Such a process ~rsiori, }fhich is not untypical historically, ts seen purely from th~~oint of its destructive tendencies, which to be sure devastated canons of traditional knowledge.. But at the base of the~ue of mission-inspired education)is the fact that the artists were trained in European method~ Here is how he explicates the point: "The earliest of Africans of this group received their earliest training. at missionschools, the only education available on most of the continent, and their ideas, particularly among the older generation reflect this early Western-inspired tr~ng.•,. This is a fair point, but can hardly be used to seriously attenuate the process of artistic exchanges developed through it. Mount's encounter with the Ghanaian sculptor Kofi Antu• barn is revealing and complicates the argument, especially upon reading the writings of Antubam ~elationship between traditional and contemporary African ar~quotes one passage b(Antuba~ten­ sively to make his point that ~ucated Africans re the chief cu'tpnu iQ the disappearance of·traditional:..U,. Here<is Antubam's statement as quoted by Mount:

II will lhertfort be.,i!!119.ial for the Ghanaian in the twtntieth oentwy to be up,ctod to 90 and produc, th• gr~vt and tthnological mURum art piom ol hu anttstors. T1\t U9W1tnt that he .should continue to do so btaUM or th~ unfortunn, 1nllu,=ot Alriaa u.cbtio..rart on the fflf,rungleu ibstnictlonists' modem lit or Iuiupo. ii aot lllfbdont to !MU lwa ....pwffll. lit IS d,ft,- to pml. sadpt. •nd wnu mu,g sGdl .ibods ...,. ao,d in ~ ii,tions or U,• worul• ...i blsing ha work on subj,cts ,eltttod from th• 111.ningful 1nd.1tillisuc aspect of his ~ol ti!,. The glod thing &bout him is that ht ts WIii awm wt in art. whu is lmport&nt ls not the tind of mtdium ustd. but wh.1t on, txpttutd wllh tht mtdlum. And what tl!.• GhllllWll uprtiStJ In art tod,,y •••cit not n«eswi\y oonllf\ut to be featured by diJpn,poruons 1nd distodions which ondoubttdly .,. th, grfatO<l q~tity of the ,ort of Art nl>f(led cl lwa by the world Olrtadt Ainu.•

Antubam'$ polemic~! vigor expresses a key argument on the con­ temporaneity of African art in the broader context ~lobal modernity") Here, he states more explicitly, the importan~ens1on ofaes:Elling, not as a renunciation of traditional style,"but as the issence of-artistic modernity~one predicated on individual e.ipression and inspiration over collective production and__canonical orthodoxy.

In fact, as early as~o;uie modernist Nigerian painter Aina Ona­ bolu addressed similar issues concerning the place of the African artist in the context of modernism. Onabolu. 'who painted portraits~colonial Lagos's demimonde at the tum of the rentury, published a long essay titled "A Short Discourse on Art•• in a catalogue of an exhibition of his paintings on the eve of his maiden voyage to study art in St. Johns Wood Art School In London on May 2, 1920.l{)nai!Q_lu)ssentially~ed the essay to address the terjiniqu" of easel ~~ but more impor­ tantly. to remind his read~ and those who would view his painting exhibitioii:°of the ,ole of the arti.stlls an individual in Africarrsodeties in the context of mode~ Tog)naboW, the painted image captured .J

the esse~ of the quest for modernity, much more than so-called tradi­ tional art could. One can, of course, see that Onabolu, in deeming easel painting as superior to carved wood sculpture, had succumbed~ the other false distinction between 'traditional• art and modem art, namely that the latter is superior to the former. Or !he reversl!,_it challenges the point, as stated ty F~ that ~dltlonal art represented alt that is grearin Arncan culturey Besides Onabolu's considered attempt to place lill\'l:se1fand his work, ;fithin the debates of the historical r~tion of artists, the short preface to the catalogue by.A. 0. Delo D~ cinctly l!Jld&rlines the~cted nature of tne'4ifoaem African--,,artisJ as an au~nD!!lo~ producer on the one hand, an'a on the other as a social" arl'!lnti'ioiircarageiil: capable of representing the. modern conditi~n which he is working, Dosumu writes: -

n,,,. ..• p,a,lw intemt •ttxfunt "' Mt. 0n&l,olu md his ...,,b_hidl woold h1w boon tlrA, Wt#1ft..-1,,r, a E11ropo..n u hels"uAlllan- tlw fact Wtlie had newr rtt'ffwd 1ny Lrdning rn Art. Tht 1mount of su«f'SS Which Ms attended his ef• foru will on the one hand b< more apptod.ltodl,y eve,yoo4y and on the otn,r blind

be~ttt value to Unao, bec1us, hiJ genius IJ ~ ol Afn<• Thoro iJ no greattr lMCliwn of. exprtssion of national life and chlrlttff than Art and no one but A(Ji<on, ~I~"'Pll'S ~.,joy and sorrow, htr hopos llicl1Spiations, and her

clwlg:iJ1g moo4,..nd~ons. In thos mpect a grm rolt 1Wli1J ML Onabolu- thl interpretaoon of Atria to tht ouwdt world.',

1'w(limportanl.J!oiolNr-e linked_jn Dosumu's claim for (!nabolu's ~ting.$ ~~euf the mod~m imaginatiOI): the~Js the ca­ _paeity-ef-art..u..~e,won of naoonal life and character. This con­ c_eption of art in the.making of the n~on casts artists i!!_the role of ~noes, speaking..as.it.e. to ~ety. Th second the artist ~alinteipreteuod. therefore, ~a translator o a society's com­ Jllexities to others outside the national space. But nowhere does t>osumu refer to the need for the artist's absolute fidelity to •traditional" arts, or does he suggest that the interpretation of national life be based on the continuation of canons of formal production that could be deemed ethnocentrically African. Th!_pivntal paint ••..sted on the production of a historical consciousnessjn art. undei the conditions.of the time in - which..the artis~rking~that.is..tn.say, th~onts_mporary present:---. Thus, i[ the claim-is.tb41 A{!ican elit~ad abandonecl:traditional" artJ then Onabolu's artLthe artist being one member of that elite-would not ha~ fitted any scheme in whichtlie modern expression of African artists could be taken.seriously. In this way the ~lycritksofmodem. and contemporary African art tended to reflect on the mechanisms of receJ!tiOn of WestenOft'in modem African,.art as though they were halves of an irreconcilable association, rather than as a dialectic be­

twee.D odhtA1 traditions antlartistic..a.tchives. The philosopher v. Y. Mudirnbe offers an an~ytical path out of the

bina'I.!!_hiclt sptin modem and contemporary African 11It,_and "tradi• tionaL" art as if they are~en to each other, by suggesting "that we consider African artworks as we do literary texts, that is as linguistfc (J3X™iYe) phen!!menus well a• disousive circuits."" However, crit- ics like Mount, with vested interest in "traditional" art. often fail to account for African artworks as part of a larger discursive circuit that includes both traditional and contemporary. except in an unfortunate devolutionary scheme. For instance. though he encounters thi$ dialectic, he is unsure how to respond to the critique of a contemporary artist like Airtubam who wants nothing to do with re-creating the ideals of"tradi­ ti~t: an.acaudin_g_to Western tastes. Mount writn in puulement:

furthermore, in conversations with Antubam, Ills suspicions of the motives for Western interest In traditional art were at times also evi­ tfent. The African ·~liW'J.sometimes believe that Westerners, Jly th!ir enthusiasm for the continuance of traditional art. are attempting to ~Africans.in._their place,· "l\old them bade! and perpetuate We!t• em domtnation." ~m•sjoinl is not only well p~ced; it also illuminateiltbe pre­ dic~f the @both as a Qroduceiland !a think';fyt forms and a~ an inierpreter of contemporary African subjectiviues-:-tFludimbe ),xplores

-+--"-. -this tension llrartiroc subjtttivity through the concep, reprendrt- which he calls a strategy of enunciation'-as one approach for dealing-with the composition of contemporary African artistic oeuvres. Repren- d~_§tes to how African artists reflec~ncejltions of co.!}temporary

-

~ in the w~they take up "an interrupted tramffon. "lbut] not out of desire for purity;" it also suggests a more.reftexive"\ipproach lnleans ofhow the work of art is situated in "a social context trans• formed by colonialism = and by later currents, influences, and fun.ions ~oad· and, finally, it "implies a pause, a meditation, a query on t e..meaning of the twopreceding exe~,. Mudimbe, in fact, alerts us to the highly self-conscious and dialectical motivations behind con­ t~:Xtncan artisticproduction. Such motiva~ns function with a heightened awar~:dfatecticalurnita~ but equally oTdlffiffiive possi6i\Ities "to indica_te broad rhythms, tenaencies. and discontinuities extending lxom recent period of rupture 1hat brought ~t new fypes of1iiistic imas~ ~ we come to the category ~nirA~amely, art made f!>L.tbe:loiµist market, and mostly patronized 'by em collectors. and 1!lurt! whiclt is~form of art that dares to call itself contem:-­ poraly art. Each of these categories remains bound to an evoTutionacy

Chapt r 11 1;

. However there were lll1lPIP ua~lhat

. ~r"kin of (e~tic concepts. idea wn they are to a more ~l\ex1ve - k Vogel, in her im· Asophi.lticated thinker and h1Stona.n such ,-;;; Art. did little to

,.; r-iores· 20th ~n!UIY ,.,..can po.untexhibition A,..ai....,. · adi . In the exhibition cat·

· f dislocated tr t:1ons.deput hom the na.rntive O • , blished-Vogel . • cid tally Mwlimbe s es:say was pu

alogue-in which. m en . , e of the prevailing categories. How· recasts in more astute fashion~ 1categoriehs scaffolds on ever, she reinforces and offee co~p:aart, Her introductory essay, which to survey twentieth-<tntury Africa : f Juase. which •ll!_gesting the- Ylest: uses asly anthro~ph~ic tun\~ f what is

wn ~tit)aradigms. . ~ ta\ogue essay a.s ~sEltJJ'Jhes, 17o;;:i.ld Cosentino referted tol III lay cp:eosely m the uaggerate 10-

. h ~-tic va ue fri rtare obJects w ose . ,. .f neo•tradluonal A can a ,= '" ae~ltetic, a SO•>e,. . L.p(!atlon of an ~uc... - . 11 L,." e.u_wlwt CoseollDO-'l'lls tn•mP - -. . f the• thm(}t .,., .. s " • . ~ . c-l\ei!J) jmitations_o \::'.: th French a$ •folly 01 sotllsl\nHS. a temt which tnnS~ ~: t~t mark the extinction of a tradwon. ll§ne says~ ~ . dinin off a fading host."11 Or they rein•

These works feed like vuuses. la t. cts such as colorful serial ptasuc umate as market-bought lopu . r oc~uld be magiaUy transformed as dolls. which, when bought Ill.JI~ figures U$ed m the Yoruba cult of

also has tht benefit of having a-sca1olog1cal connotatio , or cheap substitutes for cil!ffll.lbtJI 1

digested must surely be expurghed as ~ :· k like' A mound of regut· twins- . . howevtt, Africa Explores and its accompanying1 But what does lhe ex:urg_at~d ma~na a :eoliud form of contem· DestJ1te 1ts ~".5-cant contributions to the debate on contemporary

gitated postmodern twd. Or IS 11 per ~- • . • . new, catalogue are 51 ~ • abl and rich di.scuSSion of its percep-

ha hyb .ditts uaditional, =on-mspued, souven11. . art proVJding an mva1u e . 1 ,.._Afripomy ut t t n . . l ly postcolonial can , . , t f the intemation•I d1mel\SIOO o tnc and ode arts wilh an outcome that IS sunu taneous • lions. On reading Vogel s accoun o I that _,..., of h" ideas had

ed • th exhibition 1t was c ear ,._.,and ;st~:dern? The theoretical sophistication of Vogel's mte~:~~ry art leatur m e ped by ~ artistS or by othtr collllllfntitors, suth astions notwithstanding, the categories of her hames are not sahs It f already been develo . ,..,_,.. we ,._,ft • naruly. how

enough in addressing the complexities of tht art. Hence the resu_ o_ . his leads us back to the point at w,uu, ..,...~ Beier. T African art. For us. categories likethe Alric.an encounter with tilt Wesl is revealed by these categones ID to designate and define contemporary ..,,;- -~-

such a way that may lead some to false binaries. As in ~J>unt's wo.!!'-, "-~al extinct urban, new functionalist. or intenwuonal an att of tradi....,., • ' ( ary Alric-an "Traditional A~ppears}n a del'OluJ;i.onary \lfOCess whlcl\...then moves_ littluise indealing_ w\th the conceptual frames o contempc,r .

on to "Nevttunctional Art,i Furb~ Art,j "lnternl~Art: and\~ --ut today. . rial bal throuqh a ~oli tM path we end with 'E~_Art..) If anything...lbey tend ~ reinforce m.thodol~•n4 curato . Thtre Is something odd about tht idea of digesting Uie West, es• kanizationlhat ma_y ~ ~ contemporary ~ t~ to di~t

pecially if it leads us from the glory of "traditional art" to the tragedy b l hardly able to savor. In view of this fact, one stark pomt IS unpo of ·extinct art." Whether Vogel was cognizant of the paradox_ of her . u ;. the .......,.. of this book,

to note: when we address the contemporary "' ... . extinct art category, which places contemporary African art mthe gnp our main reference..is dete~ by the entire eplst(moloq1cal'irchitec• of an unsustainable duality-bety,-ttn a dead past and an unsatisfactory ~thedby the de<:0\onizatio movements btt-.n 1945 and present-she does make us aware Iha.!:_ l~uom being u~,_tht old 1980. a period when artists developed new cntical \ang~e-s o dl'tine• fonns of art formerly connected ~ precolonial Africa femam mordant atespaces of production and 'theories of perNptton)The basic thesis wt reminders of their11e11fisffcTegacy."' But are these reminders uselu~ to , propose is that, rather than frame our assessment in ethnographic and the artist or are they props on which curators and scholars can mamtam

ethnocentric--t'1rms, ~mpt to map the field by attendlnq ID both acntlal foot on each side of ahistorical argument? The problem is not the socio.,politi~bo.undariJSae1ineated by dflCOloruunon and I.ht geo•the !napacity of Afru:an artists to digest the West-after all. ~odem ~ifiica~ mapped l!µliasporic.,!!.\c{tDnsnauoNI m~men\$. FromEwopean artists hardly suffered conctptual constip,ti_£n in their own there, we look at the- thema~ 6lni:epl\i,l_.p1eoccupauons of lhe artingestion of African art-or to relate to the African ~t. Miglit11ie of the last three decarlas. M.ost lmponantly, the works pr~ented here. issue be the inability of curators and historians to conceptualite and and the arguments for them, are put forward as part of the broader foun•digest contemporary African ut without the mediating lens of ·tradi· dation of the 1rcl11tectur;'of the global reception of contemporary art. •tional" art as a tragic consequence of deskilling?

To recapit\llate the core of our argument, we tal<t astep back and.On reflecting the ~uiil:rnd ~sthettjoumeys undertaken by forward at ~ same time. A$ widely used as it is today, the te"'1 ·con­Afnun altists, the'j;;ethodological rules ~overning_the in.ter~rr lemporary African art' remains rich in conctptual rigor ~ apotentand reception of coru.emporary--m'has shifted. While A~ E:£_10(9) discursive mater1a\ifn the production of art. If. in the Wt forty ye.irs,was an exhibition of t~ntury African ~ nevertheless

based on outmoded categories and cultural boundary'."malting, seeking the debate about contemporary African art has played out In two prind·

to circumscribe the diversity of lite contemporary.African.artistic field. pal ar@:-in the ~nographic museum ind mlarge temporaiy group

Again, the lie\d ofanalys1)was constructed ~raphicaif, exliibitions-the• toclay~he museum of art as an analytical space for

predett1mined bonier that lits the areufsub-Sah~ the structuring of artistic discoUISl!s has "been implicated m shaping our were no North or South African mists. Though a rich sample of contem­ understanding of its historical significance. Recently. this question has porary art was part of the exhibition, few or a very~ted number of galvanized the conceptualization of one the most significant ar1d amb1• examples earuer than the 1980s were on display. And, with the excep­ tious artistic projects of the 1990s by a contemporary African artist: tion of the ~negalese painter Iba Ndiaye and the Mozambican Malanga­ the multi-part Museum of Contemporary~ (1997-2004, p. 212. tana Ngwenya, an entire generation of pioneering artists-Uche Okeke 213) by Rotterdam-based Beninois artist-Meschac GabJ. Beginning rn- and Erhabor Ernokpae (Nigeria), Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia), Ibrahim 1997, while in residence at the Rijlcsakadernie van ieeldende Kunsten in El Salahl (Sudan). Dumile Feni (South Alric:a). Gazbia Sirry (Egypt). Kofi Amsterdam. Gaba sketched out a system of de~ts-in homage to Antubam {Ghana), Vincent Kofi {Ghana), Julian Motau (South Africa), Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers' installation series MUJtt de /'Art Hod· Walter Battiss, Cecil Skotnes (South Africa), to name.a.few-from tha erne, CMpartment des Argles ( 1968-1971) 4 -of a museum that was as 19SOs 111d '60s, and working at t~ei!Jhl !1t.!!ecoloniza~, were n~ conceptual as it was conaete. Conceived in twtlve parts-from a borary included. - lo a museum shop and a restaurant; from the museum·s architecture to

AIJo. for an txhibition covering the art of twentieth~ntury Africa, its development and lundrai.sing departments-Gaba's project evinced no prominent artists-such as Onabolu, Enwonwu, Mancoba. or Sekoto, a critique not only of the museum as an institution in which cultural who were active before the Sesond-World War-!Here represented._These value is produced, but also the museum as the symbolic realm in which artists had developed styles ohbstractio!)and 6guration_in painting such value is redistributed as cultural capital. On the level of the and eapla.(td formal represeo•atioas that dealt specifically wltlrtheAf, project's formal affinity to the function of a museum, he also signaled .riun subject as a toRic..of modem.and. contemporarx._~ ~ abse[.ces an archaeology of the contemporary .African art museum's late modern­ revealedthe extent to which the categonlNormulalt.d.!Q..read African ist strategy of appropriation of cultural authority by creating the mtlns art of the twentieth century were depe~on¼ulthropologkitrather- both for its existence and for its institutional radicalism. Gabi's HWfllrn

~

16 lChtlltn ,

o.[ Contempora~frican Art not only offers a criti~ue of the license of J)le ~nb~ museum, but als~ constructs a discursive site for the aQ!lysis of contemporaryMiicanair.

Projects such as ~ba's taxonomy or the museum and its various departments and those of Georg_es Adeagoil, another Beninois artist, whose sprawli129 installations combine carefully chosen archival mate­ rial and commissioned and store-bought ''heo-traditionali African art

3!1d :)opular.:art (sculpture and painting alik~ in dizzying data-driven accumulations comprising objects, images, books, posters, and accomj!a­ nied by elaborately written notations that mimic the field work pf.the

ethnographer-are lliterp(etive vehicles for unraveling the meaning of contemporary African art. Here the ability or t~thnographic museum) .to wield discursive authorityJl}d.!he.cefore the__power of interpretation, has been quite significantly dented by curitorial programs overseen

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3 SN SldNJ UU1tc8Md l.uft.r Colltf!lllpora,y Afrt.. ar• A,t, Wfflll ol Art won (LonM· Th&fflts Md!I- 1"'1- 4 for ia-4f;Q ..... • tlw ldf.. ti W.'9> rill., --• ---51J. .. .,.,...,....... luttorial ,...,..__.... South. - Is'""""' po,a,y A.Irr tctuc-,go: U.Wmty ot Chk• ~ fonhcomil'Q 1009). 5 Ibid I S.. Ar1hal Dulto, A/tit th, Crtd I{ Art. eon:.,,,.. ,-.., A, ft e,,,.. ,{ l!hl0"1 (1m,,....._ I..L ,,,__,,__,..,~, .. ' * cc.,a, ~~ .... ' I IA U. 1KOI, wlwli ~ 911 tcll!Uapomy Afnun ut 11191" l'O btdrall,ttd i.11 lluope ffld tht u.s • ttlti* .... d«idtd ff'NIOn btt11ff'fn th• .ark

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' s.. "" ....c,,g... .., £,tly,, s - AJ,w, ~ An tllW Artu·t.1. A ~ff If Otoriw AnMDalil ,..,:ti..... ~a.Cnmaa-0,trJ ,, __ JOO_ ......,, .. ,,,,__.,..,._,.,. __, t .... Sooltyl/fS.0--,tC.~{t/

I...► ... l>y lw..it W>hlnwc c..t,_ JI,> ni,i An (Ouc190: field Muuu• el Mlhlfll History. 1974) 10 ~d"'flJ.ttltfieldr.wb •)(~Uld:C.C.U.·,,.,.ry Udra Art: Saar, ~ .. Clitmn..

A~ .4-tlJS.m•(Wiat•lOQl):f II ftintMt..cilllllltDffllUOlll._.•l.btlllDd:.,_..,......-...,,..,_.,...... 'f; II tJw t990s. -.1 Jury Hooter ~ •t die F~I•t MM\U'II Al UCl.A. 12 ni.. pGU'l.t his befll lflJdt by noted tc~rs OW?

U'lf' 1'•; though 8l4l!J ol thtll •tt Ml witholll ,.,. • - Stt Utb Intl. Cofl"r~ Art ,a 41.

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l,w,a: c.o.itr,,iporul)" Afnam Atff.lU ,,. ~no,i #J/

by the conceptual complexity of the artists' w,>rk. P!eceding Adeagbo and Gaba's projects are those of the lvo~n artist, translator, unguist, and anthropolog~eric Bruly Bou~3 with the epic Alphabet bt!tt! (1990-1991); Connaissance du Honde (1982- 1994), Antique art africain (1982) and Le musee du visage africain {1991-92). E.lch of Bouabr~·s projects restages the relationship between past and future as an archive of incommensurable events in which images, texts, signs, aphorisms, and alphabets bring together the structure or orality and the inscriptive in radical entanglement. Each of these critical projects has opened new theoretical frames for the future thinlang ofcontemporary African art as a ground of images, objects, narratives, and histories. In short, Gaba, Adeagbo, and Bouab~ay well be the most astute theorizers of the condition o(contemporaneity in African art:)

0..,,. (Wubingt-oA. DC. $atthllanila ln&UtuUoei (Londoo; - •OIi H...., -).S)I. 1t Moat. A_'ntll11 A,t ~. '-'"'>·

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tholln<,.._,_..,.,..<Mt__ 24 V. Y. ___, •.,.._rt-, t.Mnoauoru: U4t .... --.a:bDMlaltlldoa...,.tC01rt-,o­ sti.t,._ m C.,ita,..., Atnc.. Arts.• .. S.. ...,_,..., .. rm,,._... ..... Cadnt lt ..... ol..4+..""""'"""-..,,­ Art C-ftlm in 1969 n.d~ Ulilllla.tUllf a ...1- '°"' C.OU, b .,,_ Art. ,nd M­ hltaitlotl WU its di..dtc:u,cl-! .,ippco,d. CO'ffflfl9 ...., -'fnl,g 19911 117 S.. NO V T M-bt. l<"••-lMudin•p,,l""'t.klllJ> ..... pd,,......... nit Im ,t~c-..,••,-., Unhm<ty •red dfawlng. Tht n:hib1uon Uld.uded IUJM"!J·two l"rw.. 1994). 15"4·Xlt ..-u.u ho■ KJOM tbt COfltiftfflt, &om tut..... H Hout.. Afna," Arr ,.

26 _....,...._.,,. llarU. ....--IS Mlula.al. W.ud Nani. ~"'"-' Art: :1- Jlill 27 ....

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Chaptu t I 11