1. John Picton: Human origins, making things and painting pictures (4.10.01)

Essay:

Assess briefly the status of art and artifact in the emergence of human species.

Material artifacts provide diagnostic archaeological evidence for human existence, an existence that begins in Africa. This fact permits an initial review of some of the themes and questions that underlie this course. Thus, artifacts appear to provide an adaptive advantage to a species within a particular ecological context; but an adaptation to a given set of environmental factors is [or soon becomes] at the same time an adaptation thereof to human, social ends. Artifacts are much more than [and perhaps only coincidentally] a response to the "natural" environment, for artifacts provide an essential medium of social life and of conceptual thought without which the human species would not be what it is. In that case, artifacts are as much vehicles of ideas as they are instruments of practical use; but, then, is it possible to suggest criteria for defining "work of art" as a particular category of artifact? Some writers encourage us to see aesthetic value even in the making of stone tools. ('Let us suppose the idea of art can be expanded to embrace the whole range of manmade things...' G Kubler, 1962: The Shape of Time; and you might browse through the illustrations in M Trowell, 1960: African Design.)

** Phillipson D W, 1985: African Archaeology, chs 2,3 or: pp 57‑74, Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Africa [R Oliver & M Crowder eds]; or:

Shaw T, 1978: Nigeria, chs 2,3; or:

Oliver R, 1991: The African Experience, chs 1,2

* Garlake P, 1978: Kingdoms of Africa; chs 1, 2

Vansina J, 1984: Art History in Africa, pp 1‑20 [ch 1], pp 121‑135 [ch 7]

also, Spear T, 1981: Kenya's Past; introduction, chs 1, 2

Connah G, 1987: African Civilzations, chs 1,2

* Gowlett JAJ, 1990: Archaeological studies of human origins & early prehistory in Africa, in P Robertshaw [ed], A History of African Archaeology, pp 13‑38

* Leakey R, 1994: The Origin of Humankind esp ch 5, pp 79‑99

* Newman J L, 1995: The Peopling of Africa, chs 2, 3.

The earliest human species, Homo habilis, found at rift valley sites of some 2 million years ago from Ethiopia to Tanzania, was responsible for the first tool forms, the chipped pebbles known as Oldowan. The improvements in tool making identified as Acheulian are attributed to another species, Homo erectus, which emerges some 1.5 million years ago in the same area. This species spreads through eastern and southern Africa, to north Africa and about 1 million years ago to the rest of the world. Homo sapiens emerges within the last half‑million years, with anatomically‑modern humans in place by 100,000 years. This too is an African development; and the appearance of H sapiens is marked by the elaboration of stone (and bone) tool technologies, evidence for death awareness , and pictorial imagery, which appears within the same period in Africa as in Europe, about 30,000 years ago. The earliest dated example for Afica is from Namibia, 27,500 ‑ 25,500 years ago [BP ie before present] see T Phillips [ed] 1995, fig 1 p 11, and p 187.

‘For at least 4000 after about 10,000 BC, this [the central Sahara] was a land of lakes and rivers with populations living off fish and the riverine mammals, collecting wild sorghums and millets' Garlake in Phillips [ed] 1995, p 33. Much of this is evident in the earliest rock engravings of the Sahara and North Africa; and painting and engraving on rock surfaces continued through several thousand years, even to the present day. Changes of form and subject matter provide evidence of changes in ecology, economy, subsistence and population, and leads us on to consider the emergence of domesticated crop and animal species in Africa.

** Willett F, 1971: African Art, pp 43‑56 or:

Willcox A R, 1983: The Rock Art of Africa pp 33‑41 [Sahara]

* Davis W, 1990: The study of rock art in Africa, in P Robertshaw [ed], A History of African Archaeology.

NB Willcox seems to suggest that the diverse rock art traditions throughout Africa might have some common origin and purpose with, and derivation from Palaeolithic cave art in Europe. This is merely wishful thinking of an old‑fashioned kind with, as we now know, essentially pejorative implications. Nevertheless, he has provided one of the most comprehensive survey of this art yet available: but ignore his attempts at "culture history".

A note regarding the foraging mode of production:

Once upon a time everyone lived by foraging (hunting, gathering, fishing) and this has continued to provide for the livelihood of the human species for the greater part of its history, and indeed still remains so for communities in many parts of the world: the advantages of farming are not as obvious as you might think. There is, of course, a great deal of more recently published literature (check the libary, and see also relevant papers in Shaw, Sinclair, et al), but here is some of the research with which we began to rethink these matters.

* Woodburn J, 1968: An introduction to Hadza ecology, in R B Lee & I De Vore, Man the Hunter, pp 49‑55

Lee R B, 1979: The !Kung San; intro, pp 1‑7; ch 5, technology and production, pp 116‑156

2. John Picton: African technologies (11.10.01)

Essay:

Comment on the subject matter of the Narmer palette and its significance for an understanding of the emergence of dynastic civilization in Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians called their land kemet, the black, ie the fertile earth of the Nile valley, in contrast to deshret, the red, the desert that lay so close. The climatic, demographic and technological factors that condition the eventual rise of Egyptian civilization are as much a consequence of the Sahara as are the developments in the sub‑Saharan region. Moreover, the Narmer palette, which documents the inception of dynastic Egypt and the emergence of the centralised authority in Africa. It also introduces us to the distinctive aspects of Egyptian representational imagery.

** Layton R, 1981: The Anthropology ofArt, pp 114‑123

* Spencer A J, 1993: Early Egypt: the Rise of Civilisation in the Nile Valley, chs 1‑3, esp 48‑62.

* Oliver R, 1991, The African Experience, ch 5, pp 51‑63 see also: Willett F, 1971: African Art, pp 109‑114 [Egypt in Africa] or:

Connah G, 1987: African Civilzations chs 3, 4 or: Philipson D, 1985: African Archaeology, ch 6; and: O'Connor D, 1990: Egyptology & arcahaeology: an African perspective, in P Robertshaw [ed], A History of African Archaeology, pp 236‑251

It is now evident that while the development of farming domesticated crop species in Egypt is a coming together of elements coming down the Nile from sub‑Saharan Africa with elements from western Asia, the processes of crop domestication from the central Sahara southwards is a development indigenous to that region, perhaps as a response to the climatic changes that have produced the Sahara, but owing little to north Africa, Egypt or the Middle East. The evidence is provided by the mosaic of indigenous wild prototype plant species. Indeed, even the development of agriculture in Egypt may, at least in part, be contingent upon those same climatic changes.

* Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms of Africa, ch 3 or: Shaw T, 1977: Hunters, gatherers and first farmers in W Af; in J V S Megaw: Hunters, Gatherers and First Farmers beyond Europe; or:

Harlan J R, J M J de Wet & A Stemmler [eds], 1976: Origins of African Plant Domestication, esp. Harlan etc: Introduction...; or:

Oliver R, 1991, The African Experience, ch 3; or:

Philipson D, 1985: African Archaeology, chs 5, 6; or:

Shaw, Sinclair, Andah, Okpoko (eds), 1993, The Archaeology of Africa; Wetterstrom W: Foraging and farming in Egypt... Muzzolini A: The emergence of a food‑producing economy in the Sahara, Andah B A: Identifying early farming traditions of west Africa; or:

* Newman J L, 1995: The Peopling of Africa, ch 4.

Pottery‑making in Africa is largely characterised by divers hand‑built and bonfired wares. These techniques are highly efficient given local circumstances, although, as at least one case study (Barley) reveals, not always efficiently realized in practice, a fact that not only demands explanation but also reveals technology as a mode of thought as much as an instrument of practical living. The only exceptions were; the appearance of the wheel and the kiln in Egypt in the second pre‑dynastic period; their use by urban Arab potters in north Africa following the advent of Islam; and attempts at their introduction in colonial sub‑Saharan Africa.

Howard E & E Morris [eds], 1981: Production and Distribution: a Ceramic Viewpoint:

** Nicklin K: Pottery production and distribution in SE Nigeria; Hodder I: Pottery production and use: a theoretical discussion; also: H Balfet: Pottery production & distribution in the Mahgreb.

Picton J [ed], 1984: Earthenware in Asia and Africa, Percival David Foundation Colloquy, 12

** Simmonds D: Pottery in Nigeria; pp 54‑92 [but over 60 illustrations].

* Barley N: Placing the West African Potter, pp 93‑105; also see also J Bynon [Berber women's pottery] and Ibigbami [Yoruba] in JP/PDF;

The evidence of certain central Saharan sites also suggests this region as the location of an invention of ceramic technology independent of western Asia, and earlier than Ancient Egypt. Since this paper was written earlier dates have emerged: `By 8000BC, people everywhere in the region [the central Sahara] had developed pottery for their cooking and storage vessels' Garlake in T Phillips [ed], 1995, p33. One of the first papers pointing this out was:

* Hays T R, 1980: The Sahara as a centre of ceramic distribution' in B Swartz & R Dumett: West African Culture Dynamics

Although in the Middle East copper precedes iron in the evolution of metallurgy (and Ancient Egypt was indeed a "bronze age" civilization throughout the greater part of its history), in sub‑Saharan Africa iron appears, archaeologically, prior to copper. This has been taken as indicating the transfer of a fully developed metallurgy to the sub‑Saharan region, and much of the literature has thus been concerned with the relative merits as its source of Egypt, via Meroe; or southern Arabia, via Axum; or the Phoenicians, via Carthage. The structure and dating of early iron‑smelting furnaces in the subSaharan region, eg at the Nok Culture site of Taruga, Nigeria, effectively rules out Meroe and would suggest Carthage (but for the lack of any knowledge of Carthaginian furnaces so far). However, the discovery of early copper workings at southern Saharan sites has served to complicate and query the very basis for this discussion.

** Herbert E, 1984: Red Gold ofAfrica, pp 3‑11, & chs 1 (pp 15‑28), 4 (pp 76‑100)

** Shaw T, 1978: Nigeria..., ch 5

* McKeating & D Phillipson, 1996: Metal in Africa, esp chs 2, 3 pp 7‑16

* Tylecote R, 1975: The origins of iron smelting in Africa, W Af J of Archaeology; or:

Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms of AI'rica, ch 3 or: Oliver R, 1991: The African Experience, ch 6; or:

Philipson D, 1985: African Archaeology, ch 7; see also:

Pole L, Iron‑working aparatus..., W Af J of Archaeology, 5 or:

Kense F, in R Haaland & P Shinnie (eds), 1985: African Iron Working, pp 11‑27; or:

J A Okoro et al, 1993: Changing perspectives on traditional iron production in west Africa; and several other papers in:

Shaw, Sinclair, Andah, Okpoko or: MeNaughton P R, 1988: The Mande Blacksmiths . . . in West Africa, pp 1‑41 or: Nadel S F, 1946: A Black Byzantium, ch xiv

3. Niall Finneran: Egypt, Nubia and Aksum (18.10.01)

Essay:

Give a brief account of the relationships between the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Nubia.

Throughout the dynastic period relationships were established and maintained between Egypt and peoples to the south, whether through military conquest or trade; and one late dynasty was of Nubian origin. Yet the distribution of pharaonic practices, though widely imagined, is surprisingly limited. Thus, the Nubian civilizaton of Kerma is perhaps of equivalent antiquity to Egypt (though, in due course, Nubian Christianity would be of Egyptian origin). The civilization of Meroe is a synthesis of Egyptian and local elements, and Meroitic iron working is of Egyptian derivation, whereas subSaharan iron working is not (see weeks 3 & 4).

** Taylor J H, 1991: Egypt and Nubia [it is very short: read as much as you can]; see also:

Connah G, 1987: African Civilzations chs 3, 4 or: Philipson D, 1985: African Archaeology, ch 6; or: Shinnie P, 1967: Meroe a civilization of the Sudan, ch IV, pp 99‑131

Shinnie P, 1996: Ancient Nubia; or:

Welsby D, 1996: The Kingdom of Kush

Meroe was finally destroyed by by Ezana, the Christian king of Aksum, espousing a Christianity also of Egyptian origin; and both Egypt via Meroe and southern Arabia via Aksum have once‑upon-a‑time been suggested as possible routes whereby metalworking was introduced to the sub‑Saharan region (but note the discussion in weeks 3 & 4 for alternative and more likely explanations). At this point in the course, however, we are concerned first with the pre‑Christian monuments of Aksum.

** Phillipson D W, 1998: Ancient Ethiopia, esp chs 3, 4 , 6 pp 50‑118, 127‑138

Phillipson D W, 2000: Axumite urbanism, in DMAnderson & R Rathbone [eds], Africa's Urban Past pp 52‑65

* Munro‑Hay S, 1991:Aksum: an African civilization of late antiquity, chs V, XII & pp 248‑251

Munro‑Hay S, 1993: State development and urbanism in northern Ethiopia, in Shaw, Sinclair, Andah, Okpoko (eds), The Archaeology of Africa pp 609‑621; see also:

Connah G, 1987: African Civilizations, chs 3 & 4

Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms of Africa, pp 41‑46

Butzer K W, 1981: Rise and fal l of Axum, American Antiquity, 46 (3), pp 471‑95

Oliver R, 1991: The African Experience, ch 7, pp 77‑89

4. Tania Tribe: Pictorial imagery in Egypt and Ethiopia (25.10.01)

Essay:

Give a brief account of the distinctive features of pharaonic Egyptian pictorial representation and comment thereon.

Egyptology, ie the study of archaeological and textual material principally from the inception of dynastic Egypt c. 3100 BC to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, has long been a subject in its own right given the sheer volume of material, and specialist courses units are available in the Egyptology Dept at UCL. Three aspects, however, are of concern to us here: the factors leading to the formation of Egyptian civilization as a specifically African phenomenon, as already discussed in week 2; the relationships between Egypt and the civilizations to its south, dealt with last week; and, now, the persistence of the figurative conventions that we have seen on the Narmer palette thoughout Egyptian dynastic history with remarkable consistency, with only brief and occasional disturbance as in the reign of Akhenaten in the 18th Dynasty.

** Davis W, 1982: Canonical representation in Egyptian art, Res, 4, pp 20‑46

Davis W, 1989: The Canonical Tradition in Ancient Egyptian Art; or:

Schaffer H, 1919 (English translation, J Baines, 1974): Principles of Egyptian Art, pp14‑36, 159‑199

For background reading about ancient Egypt see any of:

* Quirke S & J Spencer [eds], 1992: The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt

Spencer A J, 1993: Early Egypt, chs 4, 5 pp 63‑119

Trigger B G, B J Kemp, D O'Connor, & A B LLoyd, 1983: Ancient Egypt. a Social History

Smith W S, 1981: The Art & Architecture of Ancient Egypt

With Egypt brought into the Roman Empire, the creative and conceptual interests once manifest in Dynastic visual culture were finally absorbed into Christianity; and by the 4th century AD Egyptian Christianity had been taken upstream along the Nile to Axum and Ethiopia. The second part of this week, therefore, is conerned with the visual imagery and culture of what is now he Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

** Chojnacki S, 1964: Short intro to Ethiopian painting, J of Ethiopian Studies, II (2), pp 1‑11 and/or:

** Chojnacki S, 1983: Major Themes ire Ethiopian Painting, intro & ch 1

* Heldman M & S Munro‑Hay, 1993: African Zion: the Sacred Art of Ethiopia

5. Niall Finneran: The material culture of cities and states in East and Central Africa (1.11.01)

Essay:

Compare and contrast the archaeological and ideological implications of Great Zimbabwe

The ethnic and economic origins of the Swahili towns of the east African coast are subjects of continuing controversy. The model of Asiatic colonization has been largely rejected by historians and archaeologists...' [Norton & Mudida, 1993, p 673]. Swahili is a Bantu‑related language, but the derivation of elements leading to the formation of distinctive Swahili social and visual practices is complex, and their relationship to inland agricultural, pastoral and foraging communities remains a matter for discussion; and the advent of Islam and participation in trade around the Indian Ocean are also relevant factors. In any case, these distinctive practices are in fact found from Tanzania to Somalia giving rise to what is sometimes called the Azanian art style (see Grottanelli in Loughran, 1986). Moreover, part of the explanation of Great Zimbabwe is concerned with trade networks around the Indian Ocean mediated via coastal East Africa.

** Horton M, 1987: The Swahili corridor, Scientific American 257, pp 86‑93 (there is a photocopy of this and other papers by Norton placed on reserve in the library)

Horton M, & N Mudida, 1993: ...evidence for the origin of the Swahili communities of east Africa, in Shaw, Sinclair, Andah, Okpoko, The Archaeology of Africa, pp 673‑693

* Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms ofAfrica, ch 5; see also:

* Garlake P, 1966: The Early Islamic Architecture of the East African Coast and/or:

* Donley L, 1982: House power: Swahili space and symbolic markers, in I Hodder [ed] Symbolic and Structural Archaeology

Ghaidan U, 1975: La7921G: a Study of the Swahili Town

Sheriff A, 1995: The History of Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town

Connah G, 1987: African Civilizations, ch 7 "Loughran K S, et al [eds], 1986: Somalia in Word and Image

Sutton J, 1990: A Thousand Years of East Africa, pp 28‑88 see also: Middleton J, 1993: The World of the Swahili

Allen J de Vere, 1993: Swahili Origins but NB the critical review of these last two by J Willis in the TLS of 2.7.93

The fact that the period marked by the appearance of iron‑working also provides the earliest evidence for developed sculptural traditions, in particular the pottery sculptures of Nok and Lydenburg, will be discussed briefly in week 7 together with the implications of a remarkable coincidence in the distribution pattern of Bantu languages with the Early Iron Age Industrial Complex as marked by its distinctive forms of pottery and reliance upon woodland agriculture, and the mosaic of differing traditions that comes into being as this merges with the pastoralism of eastern and southern Africa. (This has often referred to as the Bantu "migration", which it almost certainly is not ‑ if, by that term, a large‑scale movement of people and communities is intended; and precisely what did happen is a matter for discussion.) With the development of long‑distance trading routes and of control over access to scarce commodities, the conditions are set (as in West Africa) for the emergence of centralised structures and systems of authority, for which the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, which reached its peals of prosperity probably in the early fifteenth century, provide the most dramatic material evidence. However, thereafter Great Zimbabwe was in decline and the centre of authority in south‑central Africa passed to Mwene‑Mutapa. (Although control over local or longdistance trade may be part of an explanation for the emergence of centralised authority, it will not explain everything of what we know about state formation in Africa; but it does provide a framework of explanation in terms of the local situation without any need of recourse to now untenable notions of the diffusion of the idea of the state, and/or of kingship, from a single source. Nevertheless, across a more limited area the diffusion of ideas and practices may be significant as, for example, in the mythic relationship between smiths and kings found in at least some of the kingdoms of central Africa ‑ see Herbert, (1) 93.)

** Garlake P, 1973: Great Zimbabwe (the classic account: read as much of this as you can); and/or: ** Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms of Africa, ch 4; or:

Phillipson D W, 1985: African Archaeology, ch 8

Phillipson D W, 1977: The Later Prehistory of Eastern & Southern Africa, ch VIII; or:

Hall M, 1987: The Changing Past ...southern Africa 200‑1860, cps 8‑9, pp 91‑116; or:

Hall M, 1990: 'Hidden history': iron age archaeology in southern Africa, in P Robertshaw [ed], A History of African Archaeology, pp 59‑77; see also:

P de Maret, Phases and fades in the archaeology of Central Africa, in Robertshaw, pp 109‑134; or: Connah G, 1987: African Civilzations, ch 8; or:

Sinclair P, I Pirikayi, G Pwiti & R Soper, 1993: Urban trajectories on the Zimbabwean plateau, in Shaw, Sinclair, Andah, Okpoko, The Archaeology of Africa

A reference to the visual arts of pastoral peoples (for information only):

There is a narrative of juxtaposition and engagement between foraging and farming, whether pastoral or agricultural, the literature of which could fill several course units; and there are many books with excellent photographs illustrating the visual and personal arts of pastoral peoples, though all are more‑or‑less misleading insofar as they tend to emphasise the spectacular at the expense of the mundane (also missing the point that so‑called "traditional" practices may well be a response to and a functioning part of the modern world). One reference that gets us away from all this is:

Klumpp & C Kratz, 1993: Aesthetic expertise and ethnicity: Oluek and Maasai, in T Spear & R Waller [eds]: Being Maasai, pp 195‑222 see also: Cole H M, 1974: Vital Arts of Northern Kenya, African Arts, VII, 2.

A note on the place of art in the legitimation of authority in Central Africa (for info only):

In the late fifteenth century the Portuguese were looping for a route to enable direct trade with India, and in 1483, on the western coast of Central Africa, they encountered the kingdom of Kongo. By the sixteenth century ivory carvings from Kongo, as from Benin and Sierra Leone, were in European collections, and the contrast between royal authority and mankisi as instruments of individual achievement had been noted. (With the destruction of the kingdom in 1665 consequent upon the expansion of the Atlantic trade, the minkisi assumed greater prominence.) Elsewhere, at the southern margin of savanna and forest, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, the "Kuba" hero, Shyaam a‑Mbul a‑Ngoong had established the dominance of the Bushoong (the ruling group within the region). Among other things he introduced from Kongo the cut‑pile embroidery of raphia cloth; while statues commemorate Bushoong kings; and masquerades dramatise the origins of and matrilineal succession to kingship.

* MacGaffey W, 1993: The eyes of understanding, in MacGaffey & M D Harris, Astonishment and

Power, esp pp 21‑45

Bassani E & W Fagg, 1988: Africa and the Renaissance

* Herbert E, 1993: Iron, Gender and Power, ch 6, esp pp 131‑150

* Mack J, 1990: Emil Torday and the Art of~the Congo

Vansina J, 1972: Ndop: royal statues among the Kuba, in D Fraser & H Cole African Art and Leadership,

Darish P, 1989: Dressing for the next life, in A Weiner & J Schneider [eds] Cloth and Human Experience, pp 117‑140

Piston J & J Mack, 1989 [2nd ed]: African Textiles, pp 194‑201

6. Reading week - no lectures or tutorials (8.11.01)

7. John Piston: Sculpture in sub‑Saharan Africa, 500BC‑1500AD (15.11.01)

Essay:

How would you account for the early appearance of pottery sculpture in sub‑Saharan Africa?

The earliest appearance of iron‑smelting in sub‑Saharan Africa also provides the earliest evidence for developed sculptural traditions, in particular the pottery sculptures of the Nok Culture (see Shaw 1978, ch 5), and, later, at Lydenburg in southern Africa. With the inception of metallurgy, the evidence now suggests the emergence of centralised structures and systems of authority, and of urban settlements, in particular locations in the sub‑Saharan region. As to the various non‑ferrous metals, their technologies, uses, significances and sources, copper and its alloys, and also gold, are of especial importance, though for very different reasons. Gold is more important as a commodity of trade to north Africa and across the Indian Ocean than as a medium of art in the sub‑Saharan region. Conversely, large quantities of copper and brass were traded southwards across the Sahara, and later at the coast by Europeans. Of particular interest is the technique of lost‑wax casting; and once again the question is asked as to the local invention or external derivation of this technique. The earliest evidence for it is provided by the bronzes of Igbo‑Ukwu, in Nigeria; and there are grounds for suggesting local invention. Yet for the equally remarkable castings in brass at Ife, also in Nigeria, there are good reasons for suggesting external derivation of the technology, though not their forms.

** Maggs T & P Davison, 1981: The Lydenburg heads and the earliest African sculpture south of the equator, African Arts, XIV, 2

** Shaw T, 1978: Nigeria, ch 5 and pp 99‑124 [Igbo‑ukwu], 125‑146, 157‑163 [Ife]; and/or:

** Shaw T, 1977 Unearthing Igbo‑Ukwu

Phillips T (ed), 1995: Africa, the art of a continent, catalogue nos 3.10a & b, 5.45‑48, 5.60‑73

Ray K, 1987: Material metaphor, social interaction and historical reconstruction ... Igbo‑ukwu, in I Hodder (ed), The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings, pp 66‑75

McIntosh R J, 1992: From traditional African art to the archaeology of form in the middle Niger, in G Pezzoli [ed], Dall' Archeulogia All' Art Tradizionale Africana, Milan

* McIntosh R J, 2000: Clustered cities of the middle Niger, in D A Anderson & R Rathbone (eds), Africa's Urban Past, pp 19‑35

Me Grunne B, 1998: The Birth of Art in Black Afizca NB. the material presented in this book is entirely illegally excavated; and the commentary a veritable mine of misinformation. This is sort‑of precisely why it is worth looking at!

8. John Piston: Benin and Asante,1500‑1900 (22.11.01)

Essay:

Compare and contrast the methods of lost‑wax brass casting in Benin City and Asante.

Igbo‑Ukwu and Ife lead us on to consideration of the origins of the art and society of Benin, which then provides the context for a discussion of the diverse range of artifacts produced in support of centralized structures of authority. Of particular art‑historical importance is the corpus of tire perdue castings representing a tradition with origins prior to the fifteenth and continuing into the present century.

* Garlake P, 1978: The Kingdoms ofAfrica, pp 111‑136 **Ben Amos P, 1980: The Art of Benin, pp 1‑93

* Vansina J, 1984: Art History in Africa, ch 10, pp 174‑195

The Asante confederacy came about with the defeat of Denkyira around the turn of the seventeenth/eighteenth century, with the mythic conjuring of the Golden Stool from the sky. Here too we have the elaboration of the visual arts is support of the state; yet the visual character of the arts of the Asante confederacy, with an emphasis on gold and sills, could hardly be more different to Benin (brass, ivory and red cloth). Either:

** Cole H & D Ross, 1977: The Arts of Ghana; or:

McLeod M D, 1981: The Asante; or:

Fraser D & H M Cole (eds), 1972: African Art and Leadership, papers by Fraser: Symbols of Ashanti kingship, pp 137‑152; Bravmann: Diffusion of Ashanti political art, pp 153‑159

Garrard T F, 1989: Gold of Africa

* Picton J & J Mack, 1989: African Textiles [2nd ed], chs 1 and at leapt 5

For descriptions of lost‑wax [tire perdue] copper‑alloy casting see:

** Dark P, 1973: Intro to Benin Art and Technology, pp 46‑53 & plates

** Menzel B, 1968: Goldgewichte aus Ghana, [has English text, pp 22‑35

9. John Picton: Tradition and the twentieth century (29.11.01)

Essay:

Give a brief account of what you consider to be the main developments in the visual arts of sub‑Saharan Africa in the 20th century?

At the outset of this course it was suggested that four or five key ideas or developments provided us with a useful framework in guiding us through the complex and often conflicting data, and their interpretation: the inception of human species, the emergence of pictorial art, the domestication of plant and animal species, the advent of metallurgy (associated with the distribution of the Bantu languages to set in place a basic cultural patterning still in place), and the emergence of urban development and the centralised state (which are well in place before the advent of Islam). Indigenous cultural innovation provided the basis for engagements with the world beyond, whether via trans‑Saharan, Nile valley, or Indian Ocean trade. The story does not stop here, however, even though the principles established remain intact; for the advent of the coastal trade with Europe from the late 15th century onwards had its effects. We have already noted the use of European brass for casting in Benin City from about 1500, and the use of imported silk by Asante weavers from the early 18th century. These stand as examples of significance of local agency determining the usefulness (or otherwise) of imported goods. The European presence soon led to the evils of transAtlantic slavery, the artistic implications of which were discussed last week. The trans‑Atlantic slave trade persisted for more than 300 years only to be replaced by European colonial rule, against which there were from the beginning local independence movements. The emergence of nation states begins with modern Ghana in 1957; but what are the implcations of all this for art. The changes mediated via the relatively short period of colonial rule were certainly far‑reaching in government, education, religion, industrial production, communications, and so forth. In art, new techniques such as easel painting and printmaking were introduced via the new institutions of art education. Meanwhile older traditions such as masquerade and textile arts (weaving, dyeing, etc) have thrived and evolved. Other traditions have largely lost their relevance and disappeared, and the reason for this are particular and complex. Nevertheless, the 20th century has been a time of great change and also of great richness of development in art, a richness that has yet to be fully assessed.

** Njami S, 2000: El Tiempo de Africa, see: Africa's Time, pp 261‑277

** Enwezor E (ed), 2000: The Short Century: independence and liberation movements in Africa 1945‑1994, see intro pp10‑16

* Vogel S, 1991: Africa Explores, Foreword, and Digesting the West, pp 8‑31

* Ebong I, 1991: Negritude ... Senegalese cultural ideology ..., in Vogel, pp198‑209

* Picton J, 1992: Desperately seeking Africa, New York 1991, Oxford Art Journal, pp 104‑112 This review of Vogel applauds the range of material presented but is critical of its intellectual structure. You will find the OAJ in Senate House library.

* Picton J, 1997: Tracing the lines of art, in Picton [ed], Image and Form : Prints, Drawings and Sculpture from souther Africa and Nigeria, pp 11‑18

* Deliss C, 1995: Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa, esp Okeke, The quest: from Zaria to Nsukka, pp 38‑75; El Hadj Sy, Objects of performance, pp 76‑101; Recollections from Nigeria, pp 190‑215; Recollections from Senegal, pp 216‑237

* Elliot D [ed], 1990, Art from South Africa, Oxford Museum of Modern Art

Oguibe O, 1995: Uzo Egonu: an African Artist in the West

* Oguibe O, 1996: Photography and the substance of the image, in Clare Bell [et al] In/sight: African photographers, 1940 to the present, pp 231‑249, Guggenheim Museum

* Beier U, 1960: Art in Nigeria 1960, pp 1‑24

Beier U, 1961: Contemporary Nigerian art, Nigeria Magazine, 68, pp 27‑51

Beier U, 1968: Contemporary Art in Africa

Fosu K, 1986: 20th Century Art of Africa, esp 1‑37 [NB the Nigerian pioneers]

Studio Museum in Harlem, 1990: Contemporary African Artistsx: changing traditions,

Mount M, 1973/1989: African Art: the Years since 1920

Revue Noire, Paris

Brett G, 1986: Through our own eyes: popular art and modern history, intro & ch 3

10. Tania Tribe: Africa in the Americas (6.12.01)

Essay:

Discuss briefly the participation of a fragmented Africa in the formation of distinctive American identities.

As a result of the long period of the transatlantic slave trade, African cultural influences of diverse origins have provided an important contribution to the formation of social, metaphysical and aesthetic traditions throughout North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. Although fragmented and rearranged, these unique traditions have powerfully contributed to the construction of individual American identities, leading to a rich diversity of art forms and distinctive cultures. We assess these artistic productions, which cover a time span of some three hundred years from the first known artifacts fashioned by Black and Mulatto artists to contemporary art works of international standing, within their particular geographical, historical and social contexts. We are concerned with both their historical, formal and conceptual relationships with their African sources, and their role in the formation of hybrid African‑American identities. The examples considered include distinct kinds of artistic production, from the material culture recovered by archaeologists to painting and sculpture, and religious and profane performance.

** Patton S F, 1998: African‑American Art (read as much of this as you can.)

* Poupeye V, 1998: Caribbean Art, at least the ntroduction & ch 2, pp 9‑24, 49‑80

Tribe T, 1993: Saints and orix5s: popular uses of religious syncretism in contemporary Brazillian painting, in S Rostas & A Droogers [eds] The Popular Uses of Popular Religion in Latin America, pp 53‑70

* Tribe T, 1996: The mulatto as artist and image in colonial Brazil, Oxford Art Joural, 19, 1, pp 67‑79

* Baddeley O & V Fraser, 1989: Drawing the Line: Art and Cultural Identity in Contemporary Latin America, ch 4, the surrealist continent

Mosquera G [ed], 1995: Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism,from Latin America Revue Noire, 1996: no 22, Bresil Brazil afro‑Brasiliero

Studio Museum in Harlem, 1993: Wifredo Lam and his contemporaries

Price R & S, 1981: Afro‑American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest chs 1‑2 at least

Rozelle R, A Wardlaw et al [eds], 1990: Black Art, Ancestral Legacy

Vlach J, 1978: The Afro‑American Tradition in Decorative Arts

Powell R fed], 1989: The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism

Lippard L, 1990: Mixed Blessings: Art in a multi‑cultural America

Thornton J, 1992: Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World

11. Niall Finneran: Understanding the rock art of southern Africa (13.12.01)

Essay:

Discuss critically differing hypotheses regarding the significance of rock art in southern

Africa

Paintings and engravings on rock surfaces occur throughout many parts of Africa. They are the most persistent medium of visual representation: as already noted in week 1, the earliest dated examples, m Namibia, are reckoned to be 27,500 ‑ 25,500 years old, while elsewhere it is still an extant medium. In southern Africa this art is presumed to be largely the work of San artists (or Bushman the question of an appropriate name for this group of peoples seems not capable of answer), but there are major and unresolved problems about dating and intention. However, by correlating the subject matter of this art with 19th‑century and present‑day accounts of San myth and ritual it is possible to infer something, at least provisionally, of the motivation of this art (the difficulty is that these three bodies of material originate in disparate pares of southern Africa; and in any case but these inferences cannot be taken as having any wider relevance than for southern Africa). Moreover, by placing this material last we contest the view that San foragers are "living fossils", mere survivors of a past age, rather than people with at least as long a history as anyone else. Indeed, their consideration has political implications for the present time.

** Lewis‑Williams J D, 1983: The RockArt of Southern Africa, pp 26‑64; or:

** Lewis‑Williams J D, 1981: Believing and Seeing . ... or:

** Lewis‑Williams J D, 1990: Discovering Southern African Rock Art

** Garlake P, 1995: The Hunter's Vision: The Prehistoric Art of Zimbabwe, esp ch 1

** Garlake P, 1987: The Painted Caves ... Prehistoric Art of Zimbabwe

Vinnicombe P, 1972: Myth, motive and selection ...; Africa

Vinnicombe P, 1983: People of the Eland

Dowson T, 1992: Rock Engravings of South Africa NB critical review by Elizabeth Dell in SOAS Bulletin

12. Revision for the exam:

This will be arranged at the usual place and time on the first or second Thursday of term 3, after which no further classes are presently scheduled.

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BA: AFRICAN ART I. CONTEXT, REPRESENTATION, SIGNIFICATION 2001‑2002

The course might seem as if it is mostly about sculpture and masquerade in West Africa, but, necessarily, there is reference to other mediums of art, and to northeastern, central and southern Africa. In African Art I we consider who is doing what? when some things are made, used, displayed, or whatever. (It is taught in alternate years with African Art II which is concerned with the facts, processes and interpretations of change and development in the visual arts.) Art making is a form of social practice, and notwithstanding the claims of iconography and ethnography, works of art, artifacts, are things as well as signs of other things. They are social and signifying. They presuppose and entail ways of being and knowing (these include ways of playing also). People place themselves in relation to one another in relation to artworks as things in the world that stand within social and intellectual landscapes that are in part received, and in part made new with each enactment, even reshaped, reconstituted, within specific traditions of practice; and it is African specificities which are of interest to us here, rather than abstract generalities of principle of how people are (which, if you agree, we can take for granted). Then we can understand that making/marking/masking and placing, process and artifact, using and signifying, are each contexts of ideas‑and‑practices; and yet artifacts can also endure in ways their makers and users do not, from which it follows that `context' cannot be a fixed property of things and their significations. The course is constituted in four parts: i. representing Africa (weeks 1‑4), ii. marking and masking (weeks 5‑11), iii. `a language of signs' [?] (weeks 12‑18), iv. signs and things (weeks 19‑22).

We begin with a video made by the sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp, about a masquerade in her home community in the eastern Niger Delta region of Nigeria. This provides a context for [i] a discussion of some of the contrasting means by which African art works have become known in Europe and European‑America. For we cannot escape the facts that connoisseurs, collectors and curators have appropriated things from Africa and placed them seemingly in aesthetic fields peculiar to that peculiar part of the world we call the "West", and whether we like it or not these facts are inescapable as part of an art‑historical narrative as also part of the life‑histories imparted to the artifacts so appropriated. This is not, however, to assert that viewing art is a uniquely "western" preoccupation, but rather to help us understand that there are continuities as well as discontinuities between "western" preoccupations and [ii] aesthetic, social and signifying fields that are indigenous to Africa (i.e. in the sense of this or that place in Africa: I am not suggesting an essentialised African aesthetic). These questions can be considered in terms of a variety of concerns which are often contemporary with the present time, or at any rate available for study within the present century (even though, and this is another of the difficulties to contend with, most of the writing about art in Africa is constituted via ethnographic fieldwork). The human body and person are easily identifiable as the locus of these concerns and fields, e.g. through marking and masking, as also with the substance of masquerade and its variable articulations of identity, gender, power, and play. The human body and person is also the subject matter of so much of the sculpture of sub‑Saharan Africa, and here too we find ourselves considering [iii] signification, aesthetic assessment, contrasts between political and metaphysical powers and their legitimations; and with art as a means of addressing political circumstances. The course then concludes with [iv] the differing contextual implications and articulations within and beyond the work of art itself. At this point we review the manner in which so much of the literature is working with the taken‑for-granted notion of the work of art as a sign, and this turns out to be problematic. First, there is the danger of assuming simple one‑to‑one "meanings" whereas works of art bear the possibilities of receiving mutliple interpretations. Second, the iconographic model can be seen to condemn the work of art to be forever subordinate to that which it is not (its "meaning"); for works of art are things in the world as well as, and prior to their capacity to be regarded as signs of other things. Third, we have to ask just where does a semiotic decoding get us, even when using social practice (`culture') as the dictionary with which to "decode" art seems a useful initial strategy. "Meaning" turns out to be a problematic concept, at least as far as art is concerned; and this recognition then leads on to theoretical implications and problems of taken‑for‑granted analogies between `art' and `language' considered from points of view within Africa as mediated in the work of art.

You are asked to write not less than three brief essays, normally between 1500 and 2500 words each, double‑spaced and on one side of the paper only, with notes and references given according to any standard method (e.g. check the journal African Arts) and illustrations captioned appropriately. At least one essay will be given in no later than 11.12.01, and another by 19.3.03. The final deadline for all coursework (essays, ISPs) is 22.4.02. The three essays (the three best if you write more than three) provide 20% of your assessment for the course, and the exam the other 80%. You must write at least one essay to qualify for entry to the examination.

The realisation that the earliest evidence of photography by Africans is Freetown 1857 provides a still little understood dimension to the idea of the artist as ethnographer that is evident in the painting and printmaking of post‑Independence artists.

* Revue Noire, 1999: Anthology of African and Indian Ocean Photography V Viditz‑Ward, Studio photography in Freetown, pp 35‑40; P David, Photographer‑publishers in Togo, pp 43‑47; F Chapuis, The pioneers of St Louis, pp 49‑61 [NB also the French edition of 1998, which has some different images]

* Oguibe O, 1996: Photography and the substance of the image, in C Bell et al, Inlsight: African Photographers, 1940 to the present Guggenheim Museum

Magnin A, 1997: Seydou Keita

Wendl T & H Behrend 1998: Snap Me One: Studiofotografen in Afrika

For the background to and implications of the idea of artist as ethnographer see:

Foster H 1996: The Return of the Real, The artist as ethnographer, pp 171‑203) (NB Okoye 1996, above, for the suggestion of alternative modernities.)

For the two most recent publication in the 20th‑century field see:

* Njami S, 2000: El Tiempo de Africa, see: Africa's Time, pp 261‑277

* Enwezor E (ed), 2000: The Short Century: independence and liberation movements in Africa 1945‑1994, see intro pp10‑16

4. Art/artifact and the aesthetic field (24.10.01)

Essay.

`Among western Nuer communities ... a fat stately ox was still more likely to catch a girl's eye during the 1980s than were the flamboyantly colored dance leggings so avidly adopted by young men in the east.' [Hutchinson 1996, 26] Discuss.

It might seem as if the imposition upon Africa of ideas of Fine Art as they emerge through the 18th century in Europe is very much part of the legacy of primitivism. Yet, not only is there no such thing as a (unified/timeless) "western conception of art," the consensus among philosophers of art in the "west" is that the definition of art depends upon the aesthetic field, ie on the perception, assessment and evaluation of the artifact in terms of its form.

** d'Azevedo W, 1957: A structural approach to aesthetics, American Anthropologist

** Fernandez J, 1973: The exposition & imposition of order, in W d'Azevedo [ed], The Traditional Artist in African Societies, pp 85‑94

* Vogel S, 1988: ART/artifact, pp 11‑32, papers by Vogel and Danto.

* Bohannan P, 1961, Artist & critic in an African society in M W Smith, The Artist in Tribal Society, pp 85‑94

Cole H M, 1969: Art as a verb in Iboland, African Arts, III, 1

Cole H M, 1982: Mbari ch 5, individuality, inspiration and aesthetics, pp 169‑182

Maquet J, 1979: Art by metamorphosis, African Arts, XII, 4

Frank B, 1998: Mande Potters and Leatherworkers

D'Azevedo, 1957, was the first to explore these ideas from a place within African ethnography; and it would anyway be foolish to argue that aesthetic activity (and therefore `art' in the sense of things made that sustain formal and intellectual interest) was other than universal; but of course what is selected as worthy of this attention is locally specific. It follows that the ox (Nuer), the hoe (Ebira), and the yam heap (Tiv) are, or can be considered as, works of art. (Anyway they are works of an art, for ...) A thing can be useful and at the same time valued as form (and the words art', `craft', and `technology' have their origins in the Latin, Anglo‑Saxon and Greek words for `skill').

** Evans‑Pritchard E: 1940 The Nuer, pp 22, 36‑45

* Lienhardt G, 1961: Divinity and Experience, pp 15‑17

* Coote J, 1992: 'Marvels of everyday vision': the anthropology of aesthetics and the cattlekeeping Nilotes, in J Coote & A Shelton [eds], Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, pp 245‑273

Hutchinson S, 1996: Nuer Dilemmas (a recent account of the Nuer and a critique of EP); see esp ch 1 pp 21‑55

Bohannan P, 1954, Tiv Farm and Settlement, see Mounds pp 16‑17

Picton J, 1990: The Ebira hoe: there is more to its `context' than digging the earth, in C Deliss [ed] Lotte or the Transformation of the Object (published as Durch 8/9, Kunstverein, Graz, Austria), p 56

Another idea introduced this week is the mnemonic status accorded some beautiful things.

* Roberts MN & AF, et al, 1996: Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History; J Vansina, From memory to history, pp 12‑14 & M N & A F Roberts, Audacities of memory, pp 17‑44

PART II

5. Marking and masking (31.10.01)

Essay.

`Body marking is a corner‑stone in African art...' [Onobrakpeya 1992, 139] Discuss.

Following from the evidence for local traditions of aesthetic discourse and art criticism, and the implications thereof for the locus of art, we look at some of the literature dealing with bodily transformation into person and persona. That the personal arts mattered to the extent that they can be construed, in any given locality, as a primary context of an aesthetic is, after all, obvious from the sculptural traditions of the recent past; and this proposition is justified by particular ethnographic accounts, such as those discussed here. There is also the photographic evidence of books of the "disappearing world" variety; and although these promote exoticization and nostalgia, and are thus to that extent misrepresentative, this material should not simply be ignored. That the body is decorated, enhanced, transformed, is obvious enough; and the means of so doing may be ephemeral or permanent. Yet we must still ask: what are the purposes of the transformations effected? is anything signified beyond the body and the practices? do transformations via the personal arts serve the same kinds of purpose as transformations we call masquerade?

** Faris J, 1972: Nuba Personal Art, pp 21‑93, esp chs 3, 6, 7

* Faris J, 1988: . . .differences in the male & female personal art. . ., in A Rubin [ed], The Marks of Civilization, pp 9‑42

** Bohannan P, 1956: Beauty and Scarification among the Tiv, Man, pp117‑121 (also reprinted in Rubin [ed] 1998)

* Roberts M N & A F, et al, 1996: Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History Defining the person, pp 85‑91; & Inscription of memory, pp 98‑112

* Klumpp D & C Kratz, 1993: Aesthetic expertise and ethnicity: Okiek and Maasai perspectives on personal ornament, in T Spear & R Waller (eds), Being Maasai, pp 195‑222

* Magubane P (text by S Klopper), 2000: African Renaissance

* Houlberg M, 1979: Social hair: tradition and change in Yoruba hairstyles, in J Cordwell & R Schwartz [eds] The Fabrics of Culture pp 349‑397

Sieber R & F Herreman [eds], 2000: Hair in African Art and Culture

Drewal H J, 1989: Art or accident: Yoruba body artists and their deity Ogun, in S T Barnes [ed], Africa's Ogun, pp 235‑260

Willis E A, 1997: Uli Painting and Igbo Identity, unpublished PhD thesis [in SOAS library]

Cole H, 1974: Vital Arts of Northern Kenya, African Arts, VII, 2

Horton R, 1963: the Kalabari ekine society, Africa, pp 94‑113; yet again, and here important for its emphasis on masquerade as primarily the locus of aesthetic value and entertainment.

6. Reading week (7.11.01)

There is no lecture but I will probably be available during my office hour.

7. What's in a mask? (14.11.01 )

Essay.

`. . .to describe some institution as a "mask" is as likely to be misleading as informative.' [Jedrej 1980] Discuss.

Using the word `mask' of works of art in Africa might seem obvious enough; and yet it cannot be straightforward, nor can its implications be taken for granted. For `mask' is a word, an idea, a metaphor, and an artifact, each with its history within a European history of ideas. Following on, therefore, from last week we consider the relationship between person, persona, and `mask', and we try to answer the question: exactly what does, or is supposed to, happen when someone puts on a mask? A supplementary concern is with the relationship between the words `mask' and `masquerade.' However, Kasfir 1988 shows that these are not the only questions to be asked.

** Picton J, 1990: What's in a mask, African Language and Culture, 3, 2, pp 181‑202

** Picton J, 1996: The masque of words, in K Arnaut & E Dell [eds], Bedu is my Lover, pp 5‑8

Picton J, 2000: Two masks from the Yoruba‑speaking region; in K Arnaut [ed], Re‑Visions: New Perspectives on the African Collections of the Horniman Museum pp 171‑187

Rea W, 2000: Masks and styles: Yoruba masquerade in a regional perspective, also in Arnaut, Re‑Visions ... pp 159‑170

* Jedrej M C, 1980: A comparison of some masks from North America, Africa and Oceania, Journal of Anthropological Research, XXXVI, 2, pp 220‑230 1986: Dan and Mende masks: a structural comparison, Africa, pp 71‑79

* d'Azevedo W, 1973: Mask Makers and Myth in Western Liberia, in A Forge [ed], Primitive Art & Society, pp 126‑150

Horton R, 1960: The Gods as Guests (NB the three modes of dramatic presentation)

Biebuyck D, 1973: Lega Culture, pp 210‑214

Fischer E, 1978: Dan forest spirits, African Arts, X, 2, pp 22‑27

Fischer E & H Himmelheber, 1984: The Arts of the Dan

Kasfir S, 1988: West African Masks and Cultural Systems, intro pp 1‑16

8. Masks and identities, and the identity of masks (21.11.01)

Essay.

‘`. . . actors selectively use imagery referring to different pasts to explore, construct, and intensify their own group identity and, by extension, their relationships with other groups.' [Arnoldi 1995, 131] Discuss.

As often happens, there are words which, notwithstanding their conceptual problematics, we find ourselves having to use none the less. `Mask' is one such: it is, after all, a convenient `short‑hand' reference to these problems, problems that may be less with the use of things we call `masks' as with their lack of any consistency of purpose thereafter. Perhaps we should learn to think of `mask' as `a field of different attributes among which relevant aspects are accentuated according to circumstances' [Fardon 1990, 45] rather than searching as if we might discover a coherent and consistent entity; and then we can more‑or‑less stop worrying about it! Last week we noted that the questions of identity concern not only the status of the masked performer but equally the ontological status of the mask itself. We continue to ask what are masks themselves identified as? and how are they named? Yet we must also move on: what kinds of identities between people and communities are effected and constituted in the possession, ownership and use of masks? We consider the transformations and indentifications enabled and implied in the use and life histories of masks; the place of masks in the life‑histories of communities; and the categorical articulations implied therein (identities, after all, necessarily entail differences). Read at least one ** reference.

** Strother Z, 1998: Inventing Masks: agency and history in the art of the Central Pende, ch 2, who invents masks, pp 23‑43; (see also chs 1, dancing the masks, and 3. costuming for change, pp 3‑21 & 45‑71)

** Arnoldi, M J, 1995: Playing With Time: art and performance in central Mali, ch 5, Bringing the past into the present, pp 130‑148; (see also ch 2, definition and history of Segou puppet theatre, pp 18‑57)

** Fardon R, 1990: Between God, the Dead and the Wild, ch 3, jup, pp 43‑90 (see also chs 1, protestations of ignorance? pp 1‑22 (esp 4‑13), & 7, the animate wild, pp 148‑169)

* Richards P, 2000: `Imina Sangan' or `Masques a la Mode:' contemporary masquerade in the Dogon region, in K Arnaut (ed), Re‑Visions: New Perspectives on the African Collections of the Horniman Museum, pp 107‑123

* Horton R, 1966: Igbo: an ordeal for aristocrats, Nigeria, 90

* Yoshida K, 1993: Masks and secrecy among the Chewa, African Arts, XXVI, 2, pp 34‑45

Picton J, 1991: Artifact and identity, African Arts, XXIV, 3, pp 34‑49, 93‑94

Picton J, 1989: On placing masquerades in Ebira, African Language & Culture, 2,1, pp 73‑92

Picton J, 1992: Masks and identities in Ebira, in J Maw and J Picton [eds] Concepts of the Body/Self in Africa, pp 67‑86

Phillips R, 1995: Representing Woman, ch 2, the Mende and Mendeland, pp 35‑48

Lamp, 1996, Art of the Baga: a drama of cultural reinvention,

9. Masks and powers (28.11.01)

Essay.

`The evidence of the masks suggests that their creators experienced the early colonial occupation as a sorcery attack.' [Strother 1998, 259] Discuss.

Masquerade is, clearly, about many things. Whatever the overt purpose of any given masking institution and performance, all manner of concerns will be addressed thereby. Also, we must remember that `power' is another of those words that sail close to the wind of cliche. Are we talking about legitimate authority? in which case, how is this constituted, acquired and maintained? Does art provide some kind of index of and means to the necessary strategies for the acquisition of that authority? Or are we talking about power as coercive force? and is this physical or located in some other presumed domain of existence? In the latter case, how does one access this? and are these accesses and uses legitimate or essentially anti‑social? Or, perhaps, we are talking about influence (another kind of `power': remember the orator in Fernandez 1973). Moreover, it should be clear by now that in any discussion of identity‑and‑difference, and power/authority, questions of gender and its stereotypes are inevitable. We shall discuss these over the following two weeks; but first we consider some of the ways in which the existence, ownership and performance of masks have been used in political strategies, legitimations and authorities.

** Siroto L, 1972: Gon: a mask used in competition for leadership among the BaKwele; in Fraser D & H M Cole [eds], African Art and Leadership

** Horton R, 1966: Igbo: an ordeal for aristocrats, Nigeria, 90

* Strother Z, 1998: Inventing Masks, ch 8, masks in the colonial period, pp 229‑263

* McNaughton P, 1979:Secret Sculptures of Komo: Working Papers in the Traditional Arts, 4

* Brain R & A Pollock, 1971: Bangwa Funerary Sculpture, esp pp 117‑136

Phillips R, 1995:Representing Woman, ch 3, structure and set in Mendemasquerades, pp 51‑72

Hersak D, 1985: Songye: Masks and Figure Sculpture

Drewal H J et al, 1978: The arts of egungun .... African Arts, XI, p 3

Olajubu O & J R O Ojo, 1977: Some aspects of Oyo Yoruba masquerades, Africa

Gotrick K, 1984: Apidan Theatre and Modern Drama

Tonkin E, 1979: Masks and powers, Man

10. Gender, power and play i (8.12.99)

Essay.

"`I may have gall bladder but I don't use it to kill anyone."' [Picton 1988, 62] Discuss.

It is characteristic of masquerade throughout Africa, with rare exceptions (see next week), that women are in some sense placed socially by their exclusion, more or less, from performance. However, particular traditions of masking practice differ substantially from one another in the manner and substance of that exclusion. In some, there may be a theory justifying their seemingly complete exclusion from all aspects of perormance and knowledge. In other traditions theirparticipation may be no more than singing the songs and providing the audience, and yet they can know all there is to be known women. In other words the appearance of secrecy may be no more than that, serving only to heighten dramatic impact; but, even then, traditions differ in regard to purpose and intention. Though masked performances in the practice of Ebira eku, Yoruba efegelede, and Afikpo‑Igbo okumkpa share some common features, they differ markedly in terms of the status of the masks, the reality and significance of secrecy, the intentions presupposed in performance, and so forth.

** Picton J, 1988: Some Ebira reflexions on the energies of women, African Languages and Cultures, 1, 1, pp 61‑76

* Picton J, 1997: On (men?) placing women in Ebira,in F E S Kaplan [ed] Queens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power, pp 337‑369

** Lawal B, 1996: The Gelege Spectacle, ch 3 ipilese & ch 5 iran, pp 37‑70, 98‑162

* Drewal H J, 1974: Efe: voiced power and pageantry, African Arts, VII, 2, pp 26‑29, 58‑66

Drewal H J, 1974: Gelede masquerade..., Af rican Arts, VII, 4, pp 8‑19

* Drewal H J, & M T Drewal, 1975: Gelede dance..., Af rican Arts, VIII, 2, pp 36‑45

Drewal H J, & M T Drewal, 1983: Gelede: Art and Female Power among the Yoruba

** Ottenberg S, 1972: Humorous masks and serious politics, in D Fraser & H M Cole (eds), African Art and Leadership

* Ottenberg S, 1975: Masked Rituals of Afikpo, part II, chs vi‑viii, pp 87‑143

* Ojo J R O, 1978: The symbolism and significance of Epa‑type masquerade headpieces, Man

Rea W, 2000: Masks and styles: Yoruba masquerade in a regional perspective, in K Arnaut [ed], Re‑Visions: New Perspectives on the African Collections in the Horniman Museum, pp 159‑170 (see also Picton, Two masks pp 171‑187)

Strother Z, 1998: Inventing Masks: agency and history in the art of the Central Pende, ch 5, Pende theories of physiognomy and gender, pp 101‑137

Aronson L, 1984: Women in the arts, in M J Hay & S Stichter [eds] African Women, pp 119‑13

11. Gender, power and play ii (12.12.01)

Essay.

"`the mask is so beautiful you will put down your work and not be able to take it up again until she has gone away."' [R Phillips 1995, 102] Discuss.

In the forests of Sierra Leone and Liberia there are adjacent peoples (see R Phillips 1995, 36‑37) of diverse origins and speaking languages of differing groups, but each with contrasting male and female initiation organisations that each entail masked performances. The women's organisation, Sande (or Bondo), is thus one of the very few cases wherein women are responsible for the procedures of mask/masquerade commissioning, ownership and performance (everything except for carving the mask, a fact that, at least in the Gola case, is problematic for the sculptor).

** Phillips R, 1995: Representing Woman, chs 4‑6, the masquerades of Sande, etc, pp 77‑134

** d'Azevedo W, 1973: Mask Makers and Myth in Western Liberia, in A Forge [ed], Primitive Art & Society, pp 126‑150

d'Azevedo W, 1973a, Sources of Gola artistry, in W d'Azevedo [ed], The Traditional Artist in African Societies, pp 282‑340

* Jedrej M C, 1974: An analytical note on the land and spirits of the Sewa Mende, Africa, 44, 1, pp 38‑45

* Jedrej M C, 1976: Medicine, fetish and secret society in a West African culture, Africa, 46, 3, pp 247‑257

Jedrej M C, 1976a: Structural aspects of a West African secret society, Journal of Anthropological Research, 32, pp 234‑245

Boone S A, 1986: Radiance from the Waters: ideals of feminine beauty in Mende art

Lamp F, 1985: Cosmos, Cosmetics and the spirit of Bondo, African Arts XVIII, 3 see also his review of Boone in African Arts, XX, 2, pp 17‑26

MacCormack C P, 1980: Proto‑social to adult: a Sherbro transformation, in C MacCormack & M Strathern [eds], Nature, Culture and Gender, pp 95‑118

And now, some holiday reading:

* Hackett R, 1996: Art and Religion in Africa, eg: chs 1, creation, creativity and agency; 2, envisioning and (re)presenting the world; 3, ethos, cosmos and hierarchy; 4, revealing and concealing; 5, the aesthetic as antidote and transformer; 6, shrines as ritual and aesthetic space; and 7, allusion and illusion.

Term 2; part III.

12. `A language of signs' (?) (9.1.02)

Essay.

`Thus one can refer to a man's ugliness by comparing his face with a spirit sculpture.' [Norton 1965, 12] Discuss.

The phrase `a language of signs,' though used by Norton (1965, 37) in his pioneering account of `meaning and form' in Kalabari Sculpture, does not quite make sense given that, following Saussure, language itself is constituted in signs that are `meaningful' in terms of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships. This is sort‑of apparent in Norton's account, even accepting that the syntagmatic element is minimal; but then there is the question: who is `speaking/writing' to whom, using this `language'? This leads us to consider what is presented by Norton as a Kalabari theory of images as `names.' We have, of course, already encountered Kalahari in the video prepared by Sokari Douglas Camp; and it will be apparent that Kalabari is not a static "traditional" society, but one that developed in the competion for access to, and control over, trade with Europeans. In that context Norton and Barley persue other questions about the development of the ancestral screen.

** Horton R, 1965: Kalabari Sculpture, all of it, but esp ch IV, pp 27‑39

* Horton R, 1963: the Kalabari ekine society, Africa ) With any luck you will have read

Horton R, 1960: The Gods as Guests ) these already!

Horton R, 1966: Igbo: an ordeal for aristocrats, Nigeria, 90 ) (one lives in hope!!)

* Barley N, 1987: Pop art in Africa? The Kalabari ancestral screens, Art History, 10, p 369‑380; and

either/or Barley N, 1988: Foreheads of the Dead

13. Thompson's Yoruba aesthetics (16.1.02)

Essay. `I cannot say which work is better, that of Bamgboye or that of my father. Both are good. You know each man's work is different. The ipoju of one man's work is different from that of another.' [Bandele in Picton 1994a, 31] Discuss.

In the study of African art, Robert Farris Thompson was the first to investigate the aesthetic criteria motivating Yoruba art; and from this he proceeded to develop a pan‑African aesthetic. In both he was widely acclaimed; and criticised, and for a variety of reasons. Cole, for example, writes that he confuses descriptive and evaluative criteria. The underlying problem may well be, of course, that it is vitiated from the outset by assuming the existence of what it sets out to prove; but at least Thompson shows that Yoruba sculptural form can be described in Yoruba words; and comparison with Norton's account of Kalabari provides useful insight in regard to matters of form.

** Thompson R F, 1971: Aesthetics in traditional Africa, in C Jopling [ed], Art and Aesthetics in Primitive Societies, pp 374‑381

Thompson R F, 1974: African Art in Motion, pp 1‑45

For critical accounts of Thompson's work see (and read at least one of these):

* Cole H M, 1982: Mbari, ch 5 pp 169‑182

* Hallen B, 1979: The art historian as conceptual analyst, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (a photocopy used to be in the library)

* Armstrong R G, 1981: review of Thompson's African Art in Motion, in Researches in African Literatures, 12, 4

For other attempts to account for the formal attributes of Yoruba art traditions see:

** Abiodun R, 1990: The future of African art studies: an African perspective, in African Art Studies: the State of the Discipline, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, pp 63‑86

Abiodun R, 1994a: An African (?) art history: promising theoretical approaches in Yoruba art studies, in R Abiodun, H J Drewal & J Pemberton III [eds], The Yoruba Artist, pp 37‑48

Abiodun R, 1994b: Understanding Yoruba art & aesthetics, the concept of ase, African Arts, XXVII, 3, pp 68‑78

* Abiodun R, & H J Drewal, J Pemberton III, 1991: Yoruba: art and aesthetics in Nigeria (Museum Rietberg, Zurich) esp pp 12‑13, 20‑28

* Lawal B, 1974: Some aspects of Yoruba aesthetics, Br. Journal of Aesthetics, 14, pp 239‑249

Lawal B, 1996: The Gelede Spectacle, chs 6 (costume aesthetics), 7 (sculpted messages), and 9 (critical perspectives) pp163‑282 (esp 255‑282)

** Carroll K, 1964: `who said his work is like a box,' reprinted as postscript 2 in Picton 1994a, in Abiodun, Drewal & Pemberton [eds], The Yoruba Artist, pp 29‑31

Carroll K, 1967: Yoruba Religious Carving, pp 79‑99

* Drewal H J, 1988: Beauty and being.. ., in A Rubin [ed], Marks of Civilization

* Drewal H J, M T & H J, 1987: Composing time and space in Yoruba art, Word & Image, a Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 3, 3, pp 225‑51

For the sculptural tradition of Ekiti and Opin, to which much of this discussion refers see:

* Walker R A, 1998: Olowe of Ise: a Yoruba Sculptor to Kings, esp pp 13‑33

Picton J, 1994a: Art, identity, and identification: a commentary on Yoruba arthistorical studies, in Abiodun, Drewal & Pemberton [eds], The Yoruba Artist, pp 1‑31

Picton J, 1994b: Sculptors of Opin, African Arts, XXVII, 3, 46‑59

14. Three Yoruba deities (23.1.02)

Essay.

`On the assumption that one may speak of the aesthetic quality of an object, does such a consideration contribute to the significance of a ritual artifact and thereby to the efficacy of the ritual?' [Pemberton 2000, 7] Discuss.

The ritual and cult traditions of the Yoruba‑speaking peoples inherited from the past survive, more‑or‑less, notwithstanding the success of Islamic and Christian missionary activity. Participation therein is concerned with the procedures of engagement with the energy of a deity to effect changes in the circumstances of one's life. We consider the poetics and practices of Yoruba divination, Ifa; the role of the trickster, Eshu; and the work of Shango, the deity manifest in thunder and lightening. Each deity has distinctive cult and sculptural forms; but (as one might expect) we discover problems in their iconographic exegesis. For `when Yoruba people say that they perform ritual "just like" their ancestors did it in the past, improvisation is implicit ... the progression of the action as well as the meanings it generates are unfixed ...' (Drewal 1992, 23).

** Abiodun R, 1974: Ifa art objects: an interpretation based on oral tradition, in W Abimbola [ed], Yoruba Oral Tradition, pp 421‑469

* Abiodun R, 2000: Riding the horse of praise ... Ifa divination sculpture, in J Pemberton III [ed], Insight and Artistry in African Divination, pp 182‑192 (see also Pemberton's introduction, pp 1‑9)

** Wescott J & P Morton Williams, 1962: The symbolism and ritual context of the Yoruba laba shango, J ournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

* Wescott J, 1962: The sculpture and myths of Eshu‑elgba, Africa, XXXIII, pp 336‑353

* Parsons S W, 1999: Interpreting projections, projecting interpretations: a reconsideration of the "phallus" in Esu iconography, African Arts, XXXII, 2, 36‑45

* Drewal M T, 1992: Yoruba Ritual: performers, play, agency, esp chs 2, 4, 10

The best general introduction to Yoruba studies is probably still:

Eades J S, 1980: The Yoruba Today esp chs 2 & 6

In addition to the references already given, here is some further reading in the visual arts:

Morton Williams P, 1960: Yoruba responses to the fear of death, Africa, XXX, pp 34‑40

Morton Williams P, 1960a:The Yoruba Ogboni cult in Oyo, Africa, XXX, pp 362‑374

Morton Williams P, 1964: The cosmology and cult organisation of the Oyo Yoruba, Africa, XXXIV, pp 243‑261

Morton Williams P, 1967: The Yoruba kingdom of Oyo, in D Forde & P M Kaberry [eds], West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century, pp 36‑66

Bascom W, 1969: Ifa Divination: commuication between gods & men

Williams D, 1974: Icon & Image, chs 1‑8, pp 1‑48

Pemberton J, 1975: Eshu‑elegba. . ., African Arts, IX, 7

Abimbola W, 1976: Ifa: an Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus

Fagg W, J Pemberton & B Holcombe, 1982: Yoruba Sculpture of West Africa

Witte H, 1984: Ifa and Esu; also see Pemberton review in African Arts, XVIII, 2

Gates H L jnr, 1988: The Signifying Monkey, ch 1, pp 3‑43

Drewal H J, J Pemberton & R Abiodun, 1989: Yoruba: Nine Centuries of Art . . .

15. Edo art i: visual metaphor and representations of authority (30.1.02)

Essay.

`If you saw the king they captured, he is like the python of the water.' [Praise song to Oba Ovonramwen, African Arts, XXXX, 3, 42]. Discuss.

The art of Benin, or, to give it its proper name, Edo, the city, kingdom amd empire in the forest to the west of the lower Niger, comprises several thousand objects, now largely scattered through the museums of Europe and America following the British Punitive Expedition of 1897. This corpus raises many issues of significance in the study of art in Africa, not least the manner in which art participates in the constitution, understanding and articulation of institutions of authority. Here we consider the metaphorical connotations of particular animals, colours and materials in these processes, while the ikegobo (altar of the hand) also provides insight into aspects of the strategies for the acquisition of that authority. Moreover, a comparative study of the cult of the hand (or arm: it is characteristically the same word) in the lower Niger region as it is found in the Igbo‑ and Igala‑speaking areas also, helps us to understand differences in the nature and articulation of authority, as also the constitution of Edo chiefly orders.

** Bradbury R, 1961: Ezomo's ikegobo and the Benin cult of the hand, Man (old style) pp 129‑137: also reprinted in Bradbury 1973, Benin Studies (the pictures are better in Man)

** Ben‑Amos P Girshick, 1976: Men and Animals in Benin Art, Man, pp 243‑252

Ben‑Amos P Girshick, 1995: The Art of Benin [2nd ed, & the best short intro to this art]

Ben‑Amos P Girshick, & A Rubin, [eds] 1983: The Art of Power: The Power of Art

* Boston J, 1977: Ikenga

16. Edo art ii: dynastic myth and intellectual aporia (6.2.02)

Essay.

`In many respects the "Benin kingdom" functions effectively as a near‑totalizing cultural metaphor, one so powerful that scholars write as if it still existed...' [Nevadomsky 1997, 26‑27] Discuss.

Although this is an art that can be shown to have been made through five or six centuries, our understanding of it is substantially based upon ethnographic study in the present century in a social context of post‑1897 reconstruction. This was initiated by Eweka II in 1914 when he succeeded his father, the previous king, who had had died in exile. Bradbury found that by the time of his research in Benin City in the 1950s there were very few people still alive with any memories of the pre‑1897 city, and all but impossible to find anyone who had not read Egharevba's A Short History of Benin, which codified oral tradition under the authority of the palace and effectively stitched up any possibilities of alternative narratives. Nevadomsky has, however, published detailed accounts of the manner in which the dynastic myth was re‑enacted/re‑invented in the installation of the present king, and Gore has written an account of the complex cult configurations that that are effectively independent of palace control; but, whereas Bradbury (see `Chronological problems' reprinted in Benin Studies) had begun to prise the dynastic myth apart, most other researchers (other than Gore and Nevadomsky) have taken it for granted as the ground of history and icongraphy. The result is a series of publications in which interpretations of the art through the centuries of its making and development pre‑1897 is assumed to be identical with the interpretations given to that art (mostly, it should be added, on the basis of photographs) in late 20th‑century Benin City by people who are themselves brought up within the period of post‑1897 reconstruction. The differing ways in which this art is thus seen as bearing the complex traces of a heroic past as reconstructed to meet 20th‑century needs need to be faced; hence the `aporia' of this week's title. One feature of the dynastic myth is its presentation of the king as innovator; and indeed Eweka II enacted and (?) perpetuated this role; an example of this was his encouragement for the court pages to engage in sculpture independently of the sculptors guild.

** Bradbury R E, 1959: Divine kingship in Benin, Nigeria, 62, pp 186‑207; and/or

* Bradbury R E, 1967: The kingdom of Benin, in D Forde & P M Kaberry [eds], West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century, pp 1‑35, reprinted in Bradbury [ed P Morton Williams], 1973: Benin Studies, pp 44‑75; see other papers also, esp: Chronological problems, pp 17‑43; Father and son in Edo mortuary ritual, pp 213‑228

* Nevadomsky J, 1997: Studies of Benin art and material culture, 1897‑1997, African Arts, XXX, 3, pp 18‑27 (and the other papers in African Arts XXX 3 & 4)

* Nevadomsky J, & D E Ineh, 1983‑84: Kingship succession rituals in Benin, at least one of:

1983: . . . part 1, African Arts, XVII, 1, pp 47‑54

1984: . . . part 2, African Arts, XVII, 2, pp 41‑47

1984: . . . part 3, African Arts, XVII, 3, pp 48‑57

**Ben Amos P, 1975: Professionals and Amateurs in Benin Court carving, in D McCall & E Bay, [eds] African Images, pp 170‑186

* Beier U, 1964: Idah ‑ an original Bini artist, Nigeria, 80, pp 4‑16

* Gore C, 1997: Casting identities in contemporary Benin City, African Arts, XXX, 3, pp 54‑61

* Gore C, & J Nevadomsky, 1997: Practice and agency in mammy wata worship, African Arts, XXX, 2, pp 60‑69

For further accounts of Edo (Benin) art, see:

Picton J, 1997: Edo art, dynastic myth and intellectual aporia, African Arts, XXX, 4, pp 18‑25

Ezra K, 1992: Royal Art of Benin, at least pp 1‑26 [NB also its bibliography]

Blackmun B, 1988: From trader to priest in two hundred years: the transformation of a foreign figure on Benin ivories, Art Journal, 47, 2, pp 121‑127

Dark P, 1973: Intro to Benin Art and Technology

Vansina J, 1984: Art History in Africa, ch 10, pp 174‑195

17. Reading week (13.2.02)

There is no lecture but I will be available during my office hour.

18. Art in South Africa: contesting apartheid (20.2.02)

Essay.

`The people at the bottom of the ladder will always be a mirror of the past.' [Mautloa, in Williamson & Jamal 1996, 42] Discuss.

The place of artworks in the constitution and exercise of, and engagement with, authority in Africa has already been discussed in this course, for example in the political strategies enacted in Kwele masquerade, or the aesthetic affirmation of an innovative Edo royal dynasty, or even in the persuit of national and cultural identities by painters and printmakers in 1960s Nigeria; and even in the sculptures of Opin there were hints of a ridiculing of alien authority. In South Africa, however, the facts of and the relationships between English and Dutch colonists, and between them and San foragers and Bantu‑speaking mixed farmers, entailed a set of very different histories. While a few late examples of San rock painting in the Drakensburg mountains record conflicts between Europeans and others (the interpretation of this art will be re‑considered briefly in week 22), for the most part the material artifact traditions of black South Africans were concerned with strategies of gender, initiation to maturity, warfare and internal hierarchy; whereas white artists seem to have focussed attention upon the illusion of a seemingly unpopulated landscape. During the 20th century, however, an interest in painting, sculpture, graphics and installation developed within both rural areas and black townships; and, inevitably, the politics of apartheid laid upon artists of all populations a very specific set of responses and responsibilities, particularly in the years following the success of independence movements throughout sub‑Saharan Africa (beginning with Ghana in 1957). How did the visual arts develop over the past forty years? what kinds of relationships were there between black and white South African artists? what were the particular difficulties faced by black artists? and what are artists doing now that apartheid is ended? (It is also instructive to compare developments in South Africa with those in East Africa, where much of the art produced since Independence has presented a critical view of post‑colonial political government. Coincidentally, these developments also illustrate well the near‑impossibility of understanding art (and certainly the originary intentions predicated therein) in the absence of contextual data.

** Elliot D et al, 1990: Art From South Africa Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, esp Elliot's intro and the reprint of Albie Sachs' 1989 paper: `Preparing ourselves for freedom.'

** Koloane D, 1995: Moments in art, in C Deliss [et al], Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa, pp 143‑157

** Dhlomo B, 1999: Zwelethu Mthethwa talks about his photograph, pp 64‑79, and

** Law J, 1999: Penny Siopis: the Storyteller, pp 94‑109, both in F Herreman [ed], Liberated Voices: contemporary art from South Africa

* Younge G, 1988: Art of the South African Townships

* Williamson S, 1989: Resistance Art in South Africa

Williamson S, & A Jamal, 1986: Art in South Africa: the future present

Revue Noire no 11, 1994

For comparison with East Africa see:

* Agthe J, 1990: Wegzeichen ‑ Signs ... 1974‑89, esp Etale Sukuro, pp 139‑148, 410‑437

South African art is a current growth area in the literature; and for some further reading see:

Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1991: Art and Ambiguity, esp essays by Mphalele, Davison, Schwalkwyck & Nettleton, pp 6‑46

African Arts, XXIX, 1, 1996: papers by Godby & Klopper, Koloane, Metz

Berman E, 1993 (there are earlier editions): Painting in South Africa

Spiro L, 1989: Gerard Sekoto, Johannesburg Art Gallery Sack S, 1988: The Neglected Tradition, pp 9‑29

Arnold M, 1996: Women and Art in South Africa

Picton J [ed], 1997: Image and Form: prints, drawings and sculpture from southern Africa and Nigeria, Brunei Gallery SOAS

Picton J & J Law, 2000: Cross Currents: contemporary art practice in South Africa

Magubane P (text by S Klopper), 2000: African Renaissance

Part IV.

19. Signs and things (27.2.02)

Essay.

`For by investing the event with intrinsic perceptual appeal, through the means of a wide variety of visual and other referents offered as stimuli to aesthetic perception, the participants ensure that it is singled out and elevated above the level of ordinary everyday experience.' [Chappel 1977, 28] Discuss.

The work of art as thing is, by its very making and placing in the social landscape, a context of

ideas‑and‑practices. At the same time, it is a participant element in wider contexts of ideas‑and

practices; or rather, in virtue of its very existence it is made to seem as if it is somehow an active

participant therein. (We talk as if works of art could act and, even, talk; but of course quite literally

they cannot: it is we who are the active members in the `life' attributed to art, a theme taken up

again in week 22.) Each element in the make‑up of the work of art is what it is, while at the same

time bearing the capacity (placed upon it by us) to signify that which it is not; and similarly, in

virtue of its being placed within the wider contexts than itself, it bears the capacity to signify, to

represent (`stand in the place of') those contexts. There is nothing new here; for these ideas have

been presupposed in "primitivist" misinterpretations and museum ethnography as also in the

attempt to understand local aesthetic fields and social practices construed in terms of identity,

gender, authority, the energies tapped into via ritual, and so forth, as if from `within'. Although

new material is introduced this week, the intention is that we use it to reflect upon those

articulations of connectedness that have been presupposed; for it is not enough merely to state that

`x' stands for [etc] `y'. Rather, we should make the effort to understand the nature, the mechanics,

[etc], of that relationship: ie how is that articulation made? and how does it work? and it is not that

taxing a matter. For in understanding the processes and contingencies (no matter how labile these

may be) of signification we are also able to distinguish simple contextual associations (in effect a

visual synechdoche) from more complex and inevitably overlapping descriptive (or pictorial),

aesthetic, metaphoric and mnemonic contexts.

** Chappel T, 1977: Decorated Gourds from Northeastern Nigeria, pp 24‑26

** Chappel T, 1972: Critical carvers, Man, pp 296‑305

* Wolfe E, D Parkin & R Sieber, 1981: Vigango: commemorative scupture . . .

* Parkin D, 1982: Speaking of Art: a Giriama Impression, pp 1‑23

* Phillips T fed], 1995: Africa, the art of a continent, entries 2.26a‑d, pp 144‑145

* Roberts M N & A F, et al, 1996: Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History chs 4, Luba memory theatre, & 5, mapping memory, pp 117‑174

In the context of this discussion, see also:

Hodder I, 1982: Symbols in Action, pp 13‑36

Oguibe O, 1995: Uzo Egonu, esp the Egonu aesthetic, pp 45‑78

Cole H M, 1982: Mbari, ch 5, pp 169‑182; & ch 6, pp 183‑215

Cole H M, 1969: Art as a verb in Iboland, African Arts, III, 1

Fernandez J, 1973: The exposition & imposition of order..., in W d'Azevedo The Traditional Artist in African Societies, pp 194‑217 (see also his 1971: Principles of opposition and vitality..., in C Jopling, Art and Aesthetics in Primitive Societies)

Institute of Contemporary Art, 1991, Cheri Samba: a retrospective

20. Visual and material tropes in west and central African sculpture (6.3.02)

Essay. `Nails were driven into the figure [a Kongo nkisi] as an injunction for it to carry out the mission that the client was seeking to accomplish.' [Mirzoeff 1999, 148] Discuss.

Figures of speech have their visual analogues (indeed, the greater the dependence of written or spoken language on rhetorical figures, the more that text approaches the conditions of an 'art'); and, as we should now understand from last week, this is significant in any attempt to enter the intellectual worlds presupposed and entailed in artworks in Africa. This week we advance the discussion by contrasting visual tropes (especially visual metaphors), which might be said to be about knowledge, with the preparation of `magical medicines' which reveals an imaginative art of the material metaphor capable of actualization as energy. This discussion, while it takes off from previous material, especially about Ebira masquerade and Edo art, introduces Kuba (Mack, Vansina) and Kongo (Mack, MacGaffey, etc) imagery; and having argued that artifacts are inert but for the lives we `project' on to them, here we seem to encounter another theory (we have also already encountered a Kalabari theory of images as `names') in which images are implicated in the covert effects of energies that, once we have brought them into existence, might also have the ability to act independently. Does this argue against a theory of images as literally inert?

** Mack J, 1981: Animal representations in Kuba art, The Oxford Art Journal, 4, 2, pp 50‑56

Mack J, 1991: Emil Torday and the Art of the Congo

Vansina J, 1972: Ndop: royal statues among the Kuba, in D Fraser & H M Cole [eds], African Art and Leadership, pp 41‑53

* Roberts M N & A F, et al, 1996: Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History ch 6, memory in motion, pp 177‑206

* Fernandez J, 1995: Meditating on animals ‑ figuring out humans, in A Roberts & C Thompson, Animals in African Art, pp 8‑9

** Mack J, 1995: Fetish? Magic figures in central Africa, in A Shelton [ed], Fetishism, Visualising Power and Desire, pp 53‑65.

** MacGaffey W, 1993: The eyes of understanding, in W MacGaffrey & M Harris, Astonishment and Power, pp 20‑103

MacGaffey W, 1977: Fetishism revisited: Kongo Nkishi .... Africa

MacGaffey W, 1986: Religion and Society in Central Africa, pp 135‑168

MacGaffey W, 2000: The cultural traditions of the African forests, in J Pemberton III [ed] Insight and Artistry in African Divination, pp 13‑24 (indeed it would be worth reading as many papers herein as you can)

* Phillips T [ed], 1995:Africa, the art of a continent, entries 4.6‑4.11 pp 244‑248

* Mirzoeff N, 1999: An Introduction to Visual Culture, ch 4, Transculture: from Kongo to the Congo, pp 129‑159

Huber H, 1956: Magical statues, Anthropos

Blier S P, 1995: African Vodun, chs 3 & 6, pp 95‑132, 205‑238

Blier S P, 1998: Royal Arts of Africa, ch 5, Kongo and Kuba, pp201‑248

21. Words and images in central and west Africa (13.3.02)

Essay. `My own research concerning this subject [significances of colour in Asante cloth] ... was decidedly unproductive until 1995, when several weavers and vendors ... either pointed at, referred to, or copied from Ofori‑Ansa's chart...' [Ross 1998, 110] Discuss.

In Europe the conjunction of words and visual images is habitual. We see pictures with captions and have them explained in catalogues, and we take it all for granted, whereas for many of the African traditions we have been considering, a tradition of dependance upon the visual conjunction of written words and visual image is either absent or merely very recent. This is not somehow to assert, that because people did not see pictures with captions, there was no continuity or common ground between visual and verbal arts: that would be ridiculous, as we have already noted in our discussions of performative contexts, Yoruba art philosophy, etc; and yet, the relationship between visual and verbal forms may well be far from obvious. It may even seem to be absent in any direct or didactic sense, as we have already noted with the Yoruba laba sango; and we can ask if all this entails different ways of seeing and understanding visual images. Yet there are traditions in which artifacts are seen as mnemonic referrals to proverbs and aphorisms, which is closer to "western" habits than we might have expected. We consider the two best documented examples, Lega and Asante, while also recalling the Roberts' exposition of Luba sculptural mnemonics. We conclude our discussion of the relationship between `art' and `language' next week.

** Phillips T [ed], 1995: Africa, the art of a continent, Lega: entries 4.71a‑f, pp 300‑301; Asante: entries 5.93107, pp 433‑446

* Biebuyck D, 1972: the Kindi aristocrats and their art among the Lega, in D Fraser & H M Cole [eds], African Art and Leadership, pp 7‑20

** Biebuyck D, 1973: Lega Culture, pp 54‑57, 66‑67, 142‑157

* Biebuyck D, 1977: Symbolism of the Lega stool, Working Papers in the Traditional Arts, 2, esp pp 26‑28

** McLeod M, 1976: Verbal elements in West African art, Quaderni Poro, 1 NB this is an Italian journal, but it has appeared only very occasionally, and may not be catalogued as such; but issue no 1 is in the library somewhere!

McLeod M, 1984: The Asante

** Ross D et al, 1998: Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity, esp ch 8, Asante cloth names and motifs, pp 107‑125

Cole H and D Ross, 1977: The Arts of Ghana

Blier S P, 1998: Royal Arts of Africa, ch 3, the Asante, pp 126‑163

22. The art historian as ventriloquist; or do images really talk? (20.3.02)

Essays:

[i] ` ... .if these papers are a reliable index, Africanist art history is in deep, perhaps fatal, conceptual trouble.' [Davis 1989, 25] Discuss.

[ii] `I view art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic propositions about it' [Gell 1998, 6]. Discuss.

We talk about images as if they could act and talk, which are literal impossibilities: works of art are inert; they "live" only insofar as we impart a sort‑of life to them (and there are many ways in which this can be done, of course). It is as if we are seduced by the images we make (remember Pinocchio); and we are also seduced by language into the commonplace assumption of a likeness (a homology, indeed) between 'art' and 'language', a likeness that is in reality a metaphor of limited value; and if it is taken literally, it only serves to diminish art. In this context 'meaning' seem to be just another limitation upon art; and matters are not made easier by the manner in which all language about art aspires to the condition of art. Although there is that school of cultural studies that begins with language and makes it the paradigm of all communication, if we begin with the visual arts this can be seen to be deeply unsatisfactory. Read the second paragraph on p 1 of this course outline.Trying to sort this out is the final stage in our attempt to understand the place of artworks in social practice in Africa in all the rich variety of theories and forms, of presuppositions, implications and intentions, of rhetorical figures and effective energies, of rites and entertainments. (NB The readings are listed in date order: do as many as you can.)

* Gell A, 1998: Art and Agency: an anthropological theory, ch 1 the need for an anthropology of art pp 1‑11, esp section 1.2 pp 5‑7

* Hoffman R, 1995: Objects and acts, pp 56‑59

* Picton, J, 1995: the essential artifact, pp 84‑85; and R Hoffman's rejoinder; all in African Arts, XXVIII, 2 [Q: am I really 'gridlocked through the looking glass?']

* Fardon R, 1990: Between God, the Dead and the Wild: Chamba interpretations of ritual and religion, chs 8, inanimate wilderness and the nature of things, pp 170‑185; & 10, God and the dead: locating the unknown, pp 217‑226

* Barley N, 1989: The linguistic image in the interpretation of African objects, African Languages and Cultures, I, 2

* Davis W, 1989: review of H J Drewal [ed] 1988: Object and Intellect: interpretations of meaning in African art, in African Arts, XXII, 4, pp 24‑32

* Abiodun R, 1987: Verbal and visual metaphors: mythical allusions ... art of Ori, Word & Image, a Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry, 3, 3, pp 252‑70, 225‑51

* Loughran K S, et al [eds], 1986: Somalia in Word and Image, esp pp 20‑32

* Barley N, 1983: Symbolic Structures, ch 2‑3, pp 10‑38

* Lewis‑Williams J D, 1983: The Rock Art of Southern Africa, at least pp 44‑64. NB also his Believing & Seeing

* McLeod M, 1978: Aspects of Asante images,in M Greenhalgh & V Megaw, Art in Society

* Asiwaju A I, 1974: 'Efe songs as a source of western Yoruba history', in W Abimbola [ed], Yoruba Oral Tradition and not forgetting the references to Lawal, Ojo, above

* Sperber D, 1974: Rethinking Symbolism, esp pp 7‑8, 70, 87

Term 3.

23. Revision for the exam (24.4.02 and 1.5.02 if required).

(To be given 2002‑2003: the outline presented here is in process of revision, and, among other things, lacks essay requirements, dates, reading and revision weeks.)

This course of lectures is about some aspects of the visual arts of the region south of the Sahara, mostly from Congo/Zaire through West Africa to the Atlantic coast, and thence to the Americas. It does not pretend to be comprehensive: rather, it explores a series of episodes with which one might begin to write a history of art for sub‑Saharan Africa. A concern with the historiography of the visual arts is inevitable, therefore: the manner in which the existing literature is put together; and just what can one make of the all‑too‑often fragmentary evidence. Then there are questions about the assessment of local agency in response to the inheritance of the past, and to external influences; and the place of the visual arts in the constitution of identity‑and‑difference (personal, gendered, chiefly, ritual, occupational, ethnic, regional, national, etc).

‘Art does not transmit information ... by contrast to the disembodiment of telecommunications, art re‑embodies the viewing subject. It does not attempt to tell us who we are, but rather asks, Who are you? and Where do you stand?’ (Jean Fisher, The Work Between Us, in Okwui Enwezor et al, 1997, Trade Routes: History and Geography [catalogue of the 2nd Johannesburg biennale], p 22.)

Art is a form of social practice even as we cannot reduce the forms of art to their social co‑ordinates; but what we can do is to look at some of the functional inter‑relationships between `art' and `society' as they can be shown to develop through time as contexts of ideas‑and‑practices. The `handing on' of practice is the basis and consitution of a sense of tradition, a process that inevitably entails the possibilities for change and development. These contexts comprise participant elements that are contingent and/or determining within those relationships. We are, after all, not merely social animals. Rather, we possess the capacity consciously and knowingly to reflect upon and represent that sociality. We place things in the world and place ourselves (in relation to one another) thereby. Works of art are things in the world that can also signify other things. By means of art we hold things in common: this is the essence of communication. Yet art is not our only means of communication. Another is language, a means of communication that is so seductive that we derive from it models and metaphors for understanding the means by which artworks appear to achieve their purposes. For some, indeed, language is the model and pattern of all other means of communication, a view that others think is detrimental to any understanding of the work of art; and all of this is explored at length in the African Art I course. Here we are concerned with the fact that social life and practice are temporal, configured in and through time. Social practice (including art‑making) takes time, marks the passage of time (whether for individuals or communities), is in time in the sense that as things happen (whether side by side or one after another) they have an affect on other things. Art‑making (and using) is thereby subject to change, is the subject of change, and can both affect and effect change. This entails looking at some of the new forms that emerge, and at their relationships with tradition as a creative ground that sometimes enables mere replication, and sometimes innovation.This, in turn, brings in the idea of `style' (from the Latin writing instrument, in contrast to `sign', the mark it makes); but far from being a normative category, it is more helpful to think of style as a retrospective judgement.

Within this framework of ideas, four themes dominate the course. First there is the relationship between antiquity and the modern world, the ways indigenous achievement provided the basis for the particular aspects of change and development that we can identify as characteristic of the period to the end of the 19th century. Second there is the way in which textiles provide a way of exploring many of our ideas about agency, identity and innovation. Third, there is the relationship between `tradition' and the 20th century, when colonial and primitivist stereotypes are challenged through developments in art, as in other areas of social practice. Fourth, we look at what happens in the African diasporas: what survived the Middle Passage, `africa' as a source of new identity, and art as documenting the experience of being Black and African in Britain and the Americas.

Each chapter is defined by a gerund, because the gerund (from the Latin "to carry on") is the grammatical form of process. The first chapter is "Naming". It is about self‑naming and being labelled, about coming to terms with self‑representation, despite the shape‑shifting identities most of us are forced to assume. The next chapter is "Telling," about history, family, religion, and storytelling. It looks back to where the intercultural process began and weighs the burden of the past on the present. "Landing" is about roots and points of departure, about taking place and being displaced. The fourth chapter, "Mixing," is about mestizaje, or miscegenation ‑ the double‑edged past of rape and colonization, the double‑edged future of a new and freely mixed world. The last chapter is "Turning Around," about subversion and trickery, the uses of humor and irony by which subjugated peiople survive. The brief postface is "Dreaming," proof that this subject has no conclusion.’ (Lucy Lippard, 1990,Mixed Blessings: new art in a multicultural America, p 3.)

In the course outline that follows, ** = essential readings and * = useful supplementary sources; but it really is worth reading around in appropriate areas of history and ethnography in order to enhance an understanding of the historical and social circumstances within which works of art are placed. For this, the following are suggested: J Reader 1997 (Penguin 1998),Africa a biography of a continent; K A Appiah 1992, In My Father's House; E Isichei 1997, A History of African Societies to 1870; J Thornton, 1992, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World; and S Howe 1998, Afrocentricity: mythical pasts and imagined homes. In any case, the material given here is by no means the complete list of everything that might be worth reading and students are also advised to familiarise themselves with journals such as African Arts and Revue Noire.

1. In My Father's House

Essays:

[i] Discuss critically the notion of tribal style.

[ii] To what extent can we abstract a theory or philosophy of art from current or past traditions of visual practice?

In the first week we discuss some of the distinctive features of the region and summarise the main themes of the course. The readings cited are worth catching up on, even if you do not write the essay, as they inform whatever else happens during subsequent weeks. Appiah deals with many of the (possibly tendentious) issues around tradition (what is handed on) and identity (who are you, thereby, the same as). Fardon develops some of this in his essay dealing with society/culture, local/global. Sidney Kasfir effectively deconstructs the notion of tribe (even as we still hanker for its "convenience packaging"). Ruth Phillips deals instructively with four contrasting kinds of writing (specifically about Mende‑speaking people, Sierra Leone, but with wider relevance).

** Appiah K A, 1992: In My Father's House, preface and chs 4, 7, 9.

** Fardon R, 1995: Introduction, Counterworks, (ed Fardon), pp 1‑18

* Kasfir S, 1984: One tribe, one style. . ., History in Africa , pp 163‑187

* Phillips R, 1995: Representing Woman, ch 1 pp 13‑33

Our concern is with the complex relationships between aesthetic and social categories in contrast to the simplicities of the "tribal art" view. of Africa. There are indeed two kinds of problem with this: the first (a topic of relevance to the African Art I course) is the manner in which it pnveleges sculpture; and the second, relevant here for its social and historical implications, is that it supports a view of history and society in Africa that is factually untenable for the very reason that it denies the manner in which art work, as a form of social practice, provides for the constitution of tradition, community and identity. For the "traditional" view of African art see:

* Fagg W, 1965: Tribes and Forms in African Art , pp 11‑18, 29‑43 (the best succinct statement of the view that is argued against here)

Elisofon E & W Fagg, 1958: The Sculpture of Africa (and still the best of this genre)

Bacquart J‑B, 1998: The Tribal Arts of Africa: surveying Africa's artistic geography

For further reading against this position see:

Picton J, 1991: On artifact and identity..., African Arts, XXIV, 3, pp 34‑49, 93‑94

Brain R & A Pollock, 1971: Bangwa Funerary Sculpture , pp 25‑32, 83‑86, 107‑110, 117‑136

Bravmann R, 1973: Open Frontiers

Jones G I, 1973: Sculpture of the Umuahia area of Nigeria, African Arts„ VI, 4, pp 58‑63

Nadel S, 1942: A Black Byzantium, pp 12‑22 (an early critique of `tribal' naming)

2. The inheritance of antiquity

Essays:

[i] Compare and contrast the art‑historical significances of Nok and Djenne pottery sculpture.

[ii] Give an account of the problems faced by countries in West Africa in regard to the preservation of cultural property

This week we look (again for those students who took the 1st‑year intro course) at the prehistory of indigenous technologies. In contrast to the "darkest Africa" stereotypes, the basic technological, social‑institutional, and visual environments of the region from the central Sahara southwards are indigenous to that region, the work of populations genetically like its existing populations. The archaeological evidence includes ceramic technology, plant domestication, some aspects (at least) of metalworking, and urban development, with implications for aspects of social practice that do not appear archaeologically. These provide a context for local agency in assessing and, from time to time appropriating and domesticating elements of external derivation, whether from trans‑Saharan or, in due course, coastal sources. Nevertheless, continuity between past and present cannot be taken for granted. The Malian city of Jenne jeno (ancient Djenne), founded about 250BC was abandoned for its Islamic successor in or soon after 1400AD; and the plundering of it for pottery sculpture to feed the art‑hungry savages of the western world has all but destroyed any hope of understanding their purpose and significance in the lives of the people for whom they were made, Even in the city of Ife, in Nigeria, which has been inhabited since the 7th‑9th centuries AD, the relationship is far from straightforward between a mythic antiquity, the period of the sculptures in pottery and in cast brass (late 11th ‑ mid 15th centuries AD), and the Yoruba present.

** Shaw T, P Sinclair, B Andah, A Okpoko [eds], 1993: The Archaeology of Africa intro pp 1‑31

Herbert E W, 1984: Red Gold of Africa, pp 3‑28

For Nigeria and the sculptures of Nok, Ife, Igbo‑Ukwu, Benin, see:

** Shaw T, 1978: Nigeria, chs 5, 7, 8

* Eyo E & F Willett, 1980: Treasures of Ancient Nigeria

Willett F, 1992: Archaeology and the history of Nigerian sculpture, in G Pezzoli [ed], Dall' archeologia all' arte tradizionale africana Centro Studi Archeologia Africana, Milano, pp 37‑50

* de Grunne B, 1998: The Birth of Art in Black Africa (NB. the material presented in this book is entirely illegally excavated; and the commentary a veritable mine of misinformation. This is precisely why it is worth looking at!)

For early evidence of urban settlement in Mali, and possible continuities between ceramic sculpture and the recent past:, see:

McIntosh R J, 1992: From traditional African art to the archaeology of form, in G Pezzoli [ed], Dall' archeologia all' arte tradizionale africana, Milan, pp 145‑151

* 2000: Clustered cities of the middle Niger, in D M Anderson & R Rathbone [eds]Africa's Urban Past, pp 19‑33; see also Anderson & Rathbone pp 1‑13

** S K & R J, 1993: Cities without citadels: understanding urban origins along the middle Niger, in Shaw, Sinclair, Andah and Okpoko [eds] pp 625‑627

Derisse J, J Polet, S Sidibe [et al] 1994: Vallées du Niger

Bedaux R, 1977:Tellem

de Grunne B, 1980: Terres cuites de l’ Ouest Africain ; Or

de Grunne B, 1981: Ancient Treasures in Terra Cotta of Mali and Ghana

de Grunne B, 1988: Ancient sculpture of the inland Niger delta and its influence on Dogon art,

African Arts, XXI, 4, pp 50‑55 de Grunne 1998 above

* African Arts, 1995: Protecting Mali's Cultural Heritage (special issue), XXVIII, 4

For recent publications on museums and cultural heritage in Africa, see:

* Schmidt P R & R J McIntosh [eds], 1996 Plundering Africa's Past,

* Ardouin C A & E Arinze [eds], 1995: Museums and the Community in West Africa esp papers by Konate, Adeloye, Adande

* Ardouin C A & E Arinze [eds], 2000: Museums and History in West Africa

Hall M, 1996: Archaeology Africa

3. Technology, tradition and lurex

Essays

[i] Identify and discuss any three significant elements of West African textile design.

[ii] Comment on the art‑historical significance of imported materials in West African textile manufacture.

The earliest evidence for woven textiles in West Africa is provided by fragments of bast‑fibre cloth in 9th‑century Igbo‑Ukwu. Then in the Tellem caves in Mali already by the 11th century there is a welldeveloped narrow‑strip textile industry using cotton together with some local wool; and there is evidence for a textile industry in ancient Djenne. The study of woven, dyed and printed textiles allows us to assess many of the ideas about tradition, innovation, agency, and identity we shall discuss during the course; but assessment must first pay attend to the technical means at the artists' disposal (true of any form of visual practice, of course): loom types, weave structures, raw materials, and so forth.

** Ross D H, 1998: The loom and weaving technology, ch 6 in Ross et al, Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity, pp 74‑91

** Picton J, 1992: Technology, tradition and lurex... in History, Design and Craft in West African Strip‑woven Cloth, National Museum of African Art, Washington DC

* Picton J, & J Mack, 1989 [2nd edition]: African Textiles, chs 3, 4, 5

Boser‑Sarivaxevanis, 1991: An introduction to weavers and dyers in West Africa, in R Bolland [et al], Tellem Textiles

Clarke D, 1998: African Textiles

Lamb V & A Lamb, 1980: The classificationand distribution of horizontal treadle looms in subSaharan Africa, Textile History, 11, pp 22‑61

Lamb V & A Lamb, 1981:Au Cameroun: Weaving‑ Tissage, esp chs 1, 3

Lamb V & A Lamb, 1984: Sierra Leone Weaving

Johnson M, 1978: Technology, competition and African crafts, in C Dewey & A Hopkins [eds], The Imperial Impact

Weiner A & J Schneider [eds], 1989: Cloth and Human Experience, intro, pp 1‑27

4. African Islam

Essay:

[i] Identify, date and discuss any three art works characteristic of Islam in West Africa.

Islam is a sub‑Saharan African religion (so too is Christianity, although the trajectories are distinct and complex; and in contrast to Ethiopia and Egypt, for which see Dr Tania Tribe's African Art III, its advent elsewhere in Africa is largely a 19th‑20th‑century development). In looking at its effects on local visual practice there are three concerns. First: can we identify a specifically Islamic art? the art of people who are Muslim? the art of people some of whom are Muslim? forms that are part of Islamic liturgical practice and theology? forms that draw upon Islamic source material? or what?

** Bravmann R, 1983: African Islam, esp pp 72‑101

* Adahl K, 1993: Islamic architecture and art in sub‑Saharan Africa, in R Granquist [ed]

Culture in Africa

* Adahl K, & B Sahlstrom (eds), 1995: Islamic Art and Culture in Sub‑Saharan Africa, papers by Prussin, Bravmann, Picton, et al

* Prussin L, 1986: Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa, pp 23‑45

Prussin L, 1970: Islamic architecture and the Manding, African Arts, III, 4 et al, 1995: African Nomadic Architecture

Bedaux R & J D van der Waals, 1994: Djenne: une ville millenaire au Mali

Bourgeois J‑L et al, 1989: Spectacular Vernacular, esp chs 9, 11.

Gardi B et al, 2000: Le Boubou ‑ c'est chic: les boubous du Mali et d'autres pays de l'Afrique de l'Ouest [NB this has the most up‑to‑date relevant reading list]

Second: the complex and often heterodox relationship between Islam and local tradition.

** McNaughton P, 1979: Secret Sculptures of Komo: Working Papers in the Traditional Arts, 4, pp 23‑45

Bravmann R, 1974: Islam and Tribal Art (a pioneering publication that argues, against its own evidence, that Islam in sub‑Saharan African is simply not like Islam elsewhere).

* Arnoldi M J, 1995: Playing with Time: art and performance in central Mali

Brett‑Smith S, 1994: The Making of Bamana Sculpture, pp 10‑11

Frank B, 1998: Mande Potters and Leatherworkers

Imperato P J, 1970: The dance of the tyi wara, African Arts, IV, 1

McNaughton, 1988: The Mande Blacksmiths

Third: 20th‑century developments in architecture in the Hausa city of Zaria.

** Schwerdtfeger F, 1971: Housing in Zaria, in P Oliver [ed], Shelter in Africa,

* Saad H T, 1985: The role of individual creativity in traditional African art: the gwani [genius] among master builders of Hausaland, Nigeria Magazine, 53/4, pp 3‑16

Kirk‑Greene A, 1961: Decorated houses in Zaria, Nigeria Magazine, 68, pp 52‑57

Moughtin J, 1985: Hausa architecture [ed] 1988: The Work of Z R Dmochowski: Nigerian Traditional Architecture

Carroll K, 1992: Architectures of Nigeria

Aradeon S, 1984: A history of Nigerian architecture, Nigeria Magazine, 150, pp 1‑15

5. West Africa and the Europeans

Essays:

[i] To what extent did the Portuguese influence the development of Edo/Benin art?

[ii] Compare and contrast the impact of Islam and Europe on art making in West Africa.

The Portuguese came around the coast of West Africa in the latter half of the 15th century, and in Sierra Leone, Benin and Kongo they purchased and commissioned ivory sculptures, the first African art works known to have entered European collections. In 1485 they visited Benin City soon establishing a monopoly of trade that lasted until the 1530s. Apart from the ivories, are there any other developments in the arts of coastal peoples that can be attributed to the Portuguese? The answer to this will serve as a reminder of the significance of local agency and indigenous technology in determining responses to novel ideas, forms and materials, as also of the fact that, as we have seen already, West Africa has never been closed off, isolated, from outside worlds.

** Bassani E & W Fagg, 1988: Africa and the Renaissance, esp chs 1 & 2

* Blier S P, 1998: Royal Arts of Africa esp pp 43‑76 (Benin City), 201‑229 (Kongo)

For Benin City, see also:

Ezra K, 1992: Royal Art of Benin, esp pp 1‑26

Ben Amos P Girschick, 1996 [2nd ed]: The Art of Benin

Williams D, 1974: Icon and Image, pp 136‑178

Craddock P & J Picton, 1986: Mediaeval copper alloy production,Archaeometry, 28 pp 3‑32

Ryder A, 1969:Benin and the Europeans

Bradbury R E, 1973: Benin Studies

For an account of the legacy of imperial appropriation and its implications see:

* Coombes A, 1994: Reinventing Africa, intro & chs 1‑3, esp pp 5‑28

For Kongo see :

Mack J, 1995: Fetish? Magic figures in central Africa, in A Shelton [ed], Fetishism, Visualising Power and Desire, pp 53‑65.

MacGaffey W, 1993: The eyes of understanding, in W MacGaffrey & M Harris, Astonishment and Power, pp 20‑103

Thornton J K, 2000: Mbanza Kongo/Sao Salvador: Kongo's holy city, in D M Anderson

& R Rathbone [eds], Africa's Urban Past, pp 67‑78

6. Nsaduaso, adwinasa, asasia, and the political culture of creativity

Essay:

[i] How would you account for the distinctive features of Asante and Ewe woven cloth?

`One of the most striking aspects of the history of this period [ie of European and Atlantic trade] is the rise and fall of Denkyira and Akwamu, and the growth of Dahomey, Asante and Oyo, from small principalities to large and powerful states. The expansion of Oyo dates from the early seventeenth century, the rise of Dahomey and Asante from the early eighteenth. Oyo relied on cavalry imported

from the savanna at great expense in return for European imports (which were obtained on the coast in return for slaves). Asante and Dahomey made extensive use of firearms, paid for largely by slaves' (Isichei 1997: A History of African Societies to 1870, p 342).

The rise and fall of states in the region once known as the Gold Coast was a consequence of competition over access to both trans‑Saharan and coastal demands for gold; and towards the close of the 17th century a few small Twi‑speaking states joined forces under the leadership of the Asante king and founder of the city of Kumasi, Osei Tutu, assisted by a priest [okomfo], Anokye, to win their freedom from the kingdom of Denkyira. This led to the institution of a new imperial order, marked by the descent of the Golden Stool on a Friday. The formation and success of the Asante empire promoted the demand for patterned textiles, and in the 1730s a Danish envoy to the Asante court observed that local textile artists unravelled imported silk and woolen cloths in order to reweave the yarn with local hand‑spun cotton. The distinctive patterning of Asante is based substantially upon an alternation of warp‑faced and weft‑faced plainweave made possible by the introduction of a second pair of heddles. There was an increasing use of silk, and elaboration of pattern. By the late 19^th century the weaving of adwinasa and asasia marked a high point of creative exploration of the woven textile medium, never to be surpassed in the present century. Ewe weavers, in contrast, though employing the same technical means, achieved different visual effects making much greater use of ready‑dyed machine spun cotton. Of course, our concern is not only with design traditions and their differences, but also with the ways in which Ewe and Asante cloths signify a social identity with past and present achievements. For specific reference to textiles, including the contrasts between Asante and Ewe woven design, see:

** Ross D H et al, 1998:Wrapped in Pride, chs 1‑10 (lots of pictures), esp pp 30‑69, 106‑147

* Lamb V, 1975: West African Weaving, esp chs 3,4

Picton J et al, 1995: The Art of African Textiles: technology, tradition and lurex

Menzel B, 1972: Textilien aus WestAfrika, vols I, II, III, [mostly pictures]

Adler P & N Barnard, 1982: African Majesty: The Textile Art of the Ashanti and Ewe

For the wider context of Asante visual culture and history see:

* Cole H & D Ross, 1977: The Arts of Ghana, esp chs II, III, XI; pp 4‑47, 212‑221

* Blier S P, 1988: Royal Arts ofAfrica pp125‑161

Fraser D & H Cole [eds], 1972: African Art and Leadership

* Papers by D Fraser, The symbols of Ashanti kingship, pp 137‑152

R Bravmann, The diffusion of Ashanti political art, esp pp 153‑159

Kyerematen A, 1975: Panoply of Ghana

McLeod M, 1975: Verbal elements in West African art, Quaderni Poro, 1 1981: The Asante 1992: Art and arcjaeology in Asante, in G Pezzoli [ed], Dall' archeologia all' arte tradizionale africana , Milan, pp 65‑80

Schildkrout E [ed], 1987: The Golden Stool: studies of the Asante cente and periphery

Ross D & T Garrard, 1983: Akan Transformations

McCaskie T C, 1990: Inventing Asante, in P F de Moraes Farias & K Barber [eds], Self‑Assertion and Brokerage: early cultural nationalism in West Africa, pp 55‑67

7. Oyo and Yoruba; and Dahomey

Essays:

[i] Comment on the place of the visual arts in the formation and maintenance of West African states in the period from 1500 to 1900.

[ii] Compare and contrast the representational uses of art in Yoruba and Dahomey.

[iii] Comment on the place of the visual image as a context of historical memory.

For more than two hundred years the kingdom of Oyo controlled the region from the middle Niger to the coast, establishing its authority by means of the effective use of cavalry; until the advent of the Fulani jihad in the early 19th century, also dependent upon cavalry. The Oyo empire is also the region of the "classic" (ie best‑known, most often cited, etc) account of 'Yoruba' ritual and mythic tradition, with its pantheon of orisa ; and in some of these the horse and rider is a significant figure. Indeed, the sculptural image of the warrior and the conceptual image of the relationship between deity and devotee can each be related to the use and memory of cavalry; and it was from the southwestern parts of this rather than some other Yoruba‑speaking region that people were transported in slavery to the Americas. This in turn determines much of the particular character of Brazillian Nago (=Yoruba) tradition (see next week). However, other developments were in hand by the late 19th century: the fall of Oyo resulted in a series of wars out of which comes a modern sense of Yoruba ethnic identity, a renewed focus upon Ife as the "cradle" of Yoruba civilization, and the first articulation of opposition to colonial rule; and the emergence of Yoruba ethnicity has proved to be a key element of local modernity.

** Picton J, 1995a: The horse and rider in Yoruba art: images of conquest and possession, in G Pezzoli [ed] Cavalieri dell'Africa: storia, iconografia, simbolismo, (Centro Studi Archeologia Africana, Milan)

Picton J, 1995b: Islam, artifact and identity in south‑western Nigeria, in K Adahl &

B Sahlstrom [eds] Islamic Art and Culture in Sub‑Saharan Africa, pp 71‑98

Picton J, 1994: Art, identity and identification, in R Abiodun, H J Drewal & J Pemberton, The Yoruba Artist, pp 1‑34

Laotan A B, 1961: Brazillian influence on Lagos, Nigeria Magazine, 69, pp156‑165

Dahomey was inevitably in conflict with Oyo and its 19th‑century successors over access to and control of coastal ports. Its visual arts are very different from Oyo and Asante for their more overt representation of dynastic achievement and succession, more overt even than the art of Benin City. ** Blier S P, 1998: Royal Arts ofAfrica, pp 98‑123

Blier S P, 1995: African Vodun

* Pique & L H Rainer, 1999: Wall Sculptures of Dahomey

Adams M, 1980: Fort applique cloths, African Arts, XIII,3

Yoruba art has proved to be subject of endless fascination in Europe and America, and is also a significant element in the arts of the Americas. The literature is extensive. See, for example:

Abiodun R, H J Drewal & J Pemberton III, 1991: Yoruba Art & Aesthetics, Zurich [eds], 1995: The Yoruba Artist, Washington DC

Drewal H J, J Pemberton III & R Abiodun, 1989: Yoruba: Nine Centuries of Art and Thought.

* Wescott J & P Morton Williams, 1962: The symbolism and ritual context of the Yoruba laba shango, J. Royal Anthrop. Inst. 92, pp 23‑37

For further reading in late 19th‑century Yoruba history, see:

* Peel J D Y, 1989: The cultural work of Yoruba ethnogenesis, in E Tonkin et al [eds], History and Ethnicity. pp 198‑215

Moraes Farias P F de & K Barber, 1990: Self‑Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in W Africa

For an introduction to 20th‑century developments see (to which we shall return later in the course):

* Onabolu D, 1963: Aina Onabolu, Nigeria Magazine, 79, pp 295‑298

Beier U, 1960: Art in Nigeria 1960, pp 1‑24

* Houlberg M, 1973: Ibeji images of the Yoruba, African Arts, VII,1(esp for late‑20th‑century visual/material adaptations within a cult tradition)

Carroll K, 1967: Yoruba Religious Carving

Okediji M, 1986: Yoruba paintmaking tradition, Nigeria Magazine, vol 54/2, pp 19‑26

For contrasting modernisms with 'Yoruba' entailed in their frameworks of implication, see:

* Enwezor O, 1999: Tricking the mind, in Ikon Gallery, Yinka Shonibare: Dressing Down pp 8‑18

* Jari J [ed], 2000: Accident & Design: Gani Odutokun and his friends, esp pp 12‑25

8. Brazil and Suriname

Essay:

[i] Compare and contrast Candomblé in Brazil with the cults of orisa in Nigeria.

The Actress, the Bishop and the Carnival Queen is a video recording filmed in Recife, Brazil, that in documenting the contest between rival carnival queens, reveals the complex stucturing of identities through cult and performance; but as Tania Tribe demonstrates, there is more to Black Brazillian art than carnival or Candomblé the Yoruba‑derived cults known especially in the city of Salvador in the Bay [Bahia] of All Saints.

** Omari M S, 1984: From the Inside to the Outside: the Art and Ritual of Bahian Candomble Crowley D, 1984: African Myth and Black Reality in Bahian Carnaval

* Tribe T, 1993: Saints and orixás: popular uses of religious syncretism in contemporary Brazillian painting, in S Rostas & A Droogers [eds] The Popular Uses of Popular Religion in Latin America, pp 53‑70

* Tribe T,1996: The mulatto as artist and image in colonial Brazil, Oxford Art Journal 19, 1

pp 67‑79

* Benton T & N Durbridge, 1999: `O Aleijadinho': sculptor and architect, in C King [ed] Views

of Difference: Different Views of Art pp 146‑177

Thompson R F, 1993: With the assurance of infinity: Yoruba Atlantic altars, Face of the Gods pp 146‑280

Crowley D & D Ross, 1981: The Bahian market in African influenced art, African Arts XV 1

Verger P, 1957: Dieux d'Afrique, a photographic essay about Yoruba cults in Brazil

For further readings on carnival see:

Nunley J & J Bettleheim [eds], 1988: Caribbean Festival Arts, ch 1 and at least one other

Turner V, 1987: Carnival, ritual and play in Rio de Janeiro, in A Falassi [ed], Time out of Time: Essays on Festival

Owusu K & J Ross, 1989: Behind the Masquerade... Notting Hill Carnival

Arts Council, 1986: Masquerading: the Art of the Notting Hill Carnival

In the 18th century communities of escaped slaves developed in the forests of Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana), and by the 1760s they had forced the Dutch colonists to grant them autonomy. They developed distinctive visual and ritual practices, `a new world of art and architecture, creatively complicating remembered fragments of a sub‑Saharan past by absorption of additional techniques gleaned from plantation experience and contact with Amerindians' (Thompson 1993, p 118). Among the traditions that developed was the use of textiles cut into narrow strips, which inevitably raises questions about a likeness to the forms and aesthetic values of woven textiles in West Africa.

** Price R & S, 1981: Afro‑American Arts of the Suriname Rain Forest chs 1‑2 at least

Thompson R F, 1993: The face of the past: staff shrines and flag altars, Face of the Gods pp 110‑143

9. Haiti and Cuba

Essays:

[i] Comment on the place of `Africa' in Wifredo Lam’s art.

[ii] To what extent, and in what manner, is an identity with `Africa' a relevant factor in the development of Caribbean and/or LatinAmerican visual practice?

While ritual traditions from many sources (Kongo, Dahomey, Yoruba, etc) have been reconfigured to comprise the religions of Haiti and Cuba, to consider these, together with their associated visual traditions, only in terms of those sources would be to miss the point ie of understanding their coherence and relevance within local contexts. After all, insofar as elements of West African practice survived the evils of the Middle Passage, they have not done so in order to provide us with things to be historical about. Rather, their survival has been promoted by their utility in the forging of senses of cultural worth and social identity in contexts of disadvantage compounded by brutality. In Haiti, the first Black state to fight for and achieve an independence from Europe, local ritual traditions entail the use of painting and textile design, both now produced (since 1945) for an external patronage. In Cuba, the Sino‑Yoruba painter, Wifredo Lam, returns from Modernist Paris in the early 1940s to confront in art the ritual/performance tradition known as Santeria, setting a pattern for later generations of Cuban artists (if you have seen the film, The Buena Vista Social Club, you may remember that Ibrahim Ferrer is a Santeria priest).

** Poupeye V, 1998: Caribbean Art, esp ch 3, popular religion etc, pp 81‑110

** Linsley R, 1988: Wifredo Lam: painter of negritude, Art History, 11, 4, pp 527‑544

* Stebich U, 1978: Haitian Art: see also Crowley review in African Arts, XIII, 3

* Rozelle R, A Wardlaw et al [eds], 1990: Black Art, Ancestral Legacy,

* Studio Museum in Harlem, 1993:Wilfredo Lam and his contemporaries

Baddeley O & V Fraser, 1989: Drawing the Line: Art and Cultural Identity is Contemporary Latin America, ch 4, the surrealist continent

Lindsay A [ed], 1996: Santeria Aesthetics, esp I Castellanos, From Ulkumi to Lucumi ... religious acculturation in Cuba, pp 39‑50; J P Herzberg, Rereading Lam, pp 149‑169

Ades D, 1989: Art in Latin America, ch 10, private worlds and public myths;

Cosentino D [ed], 1996: Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou

10. Observers are Worried

Essays:

[i] `...the manner in which contemporary African art is approached in the West is tainted by an ignorance bordering on ill‑will.' (Njami, 1992) Discuss.

[ii] Discuss critically the concept of `traditional' art.

[iii] Having dispensed with the `tribe' it is as if Europeans and Americans have found new forms of category to take its place. Discuss critically.

The great majority of works in the sometimes and so‑called "classic" traditions, many of which might also be called "traditional", are of this century; and whatever we reckon about the temporal status of a given tradition, all too often this has yet to be proven given the fragmentary nature of the art‑historical record. In any case, it is manifest, even in the material already considered, that traditions are hardly static, and an evolving tradition can seem as if it were the agent of other forms of development as well as their representation. Moreover, if we limit our attention only to those traditions, whether in art or in other forms of social practice, inherited from the past then we are guilty of inventing an "African Art" that bears only limited resemblance to the diversity of extant and contemporary visual practice. We have already encountered the problem of naming (week 1), and we shall find similar problems in some of the texts that now follow. There are, you might think, more serious issues to be reckoned with, as, indeed, there are; but naming, categorisation, may serve to elevate certain artists and forms of practice, and diminish others. Yet whose categories are they? Having answered this, it will be evident that a simple narrative cannot be written (neither for Africa nor for African‑America where we shall find an identity with Africa is a means to assert a distinctive American identity). Two issues are of immediate concern: first, the developments; and second, attitudes thereto. The slogan `Observers are Worried' is taken from a painting of a lorry by Ghanaian artist, Ato Delaquis, a slogan that sums up the difficulties many connoisseurs of African art seem to have with 20th‑century developments. Yet, our concern here is with the art people do, not the art we might prefer them to do. In the readings suggested here, those that start from categories are contrasted with those that begin with the artists: try to read at least one of each; but first, some critical commentaries:

** Hassan S, 2000, The modernist experience in African art: visual expressions of the self and other cross‑cultural aesthetics, in O Oguibe & O Enwezor [eds], Reading the Contemporary (Invaluable collection of papers, well worth having and all worth reading: Appiah, Kasfir, Diawara, Koloane, Richards, both editors, etc)

** Njami S, 2000: El Tiempo de Africa, see: Africa's Time, esp pp 261‑277

** Enwezor E (ed), 2000: The Short Century: independence and liberation movements in Africa 1945‑1994 esp intro pp 10‑16

** Subiros P, S Njami [et al ], 2001: Africas: the artist and the city, Barcelona

** Hassan S M & O Oguibe et al, 2001: AuthenticlEx‑centric: conceptualism in contemporary African art, Venice Biennale, and Forum for African Art, Ithaca

* Picton J, 1992: Desperately seeking Africa, New York 1991,Oxford Art Journal, 15, 2, pp 104‑112

1998: Observers are Worried: the "Tribal Image" is No More, in Internationales Afrikaforum, 34, 3, pp 281‑289

Picton J, 2000: In Vogue, or the flavour of the month: the new way to wear black, in Oguibe & Enwezor Reading the Contemporary: pp 114‑126

* Njami S, 1992: Anthropometric vision, Revue Noire, 4, p 5

* Court E, 1999: Africa on display: exhibiting art by Africans, in E Barker [ed], Contemporary

Cultures of Display pp 147‑173

* Kunsthalle Bern, 2000: South meets West [O A Bamgboye, K Geers, A Kwami, et al]

For the approach from categories external to the art see:

* Vogel S et al, 1991: Africa Explores, Foreword, and Digesting the West, pp 8‑31

* Graburn N, 1976: Ethnic and Tourist Arts, pp 1‑32

* Beier U, 1960: Art in Nigeria 1960, pp 1‑24

For approaches that begin with the artists, see:

* Fosu K, 1986: 20th Century Art of Africa, esp 1‑37 [NB the Nigerian pioneers]

* Onabolu D, 1963: Aina Onabolu, Nigeria Magazine, 79, pp 295‑298 see also exhibition reviews by Cyprian Ekwensi and Babatunde Lawal

* Studio Museum in Harlem, 1990: Contemporary African Artists: changing traditions, essays by: Soyinka; Conwill; Stanislaus, jegede

For other surveys and commentaries, see:

Brett G, 1986:Through our own eyes: popular art and modern history, pp 7‑26, 83‑111

Beier U, 1968: Contemporary Art in Africa

Deliss C (ed), 1990: Lotte.or.the.transformation.of.the.object, Graz, Austria, pp 2‑22

Deliss C, 1991: Cultures . . . objects . . . identities, Exotic Europeans, South Bank Centre

Deliss C, 1992: Blueprint for a visual methodology, Third Text, 18

Kasfir S, 1992: African art and authenticity: a text with a shadow, African Arts, XXV, 2, 40‑53; see also the commentaries in African Arts, XXV, 3, which followed Kasfir's paper

Kennedy, J, 1992: New Currents, Ancient Rivers

Mount M, 1973/1989: African Art: the Years since 1920

Okita S I O, 1986: African culture in search of an identity, Nigeria Magazine, 54/1, pp 55‑60

Picton J, 1990: Transformations of the artifact, in C Deliss [ed], Lotte ....

Picton J, 1991: Africa and the two art worlds, African Arts, XXIV, 3, pp 83‑86

Picton J, 1997: Tracing the lines, in J Picton [ed], Image and Form: prints, Drawings and

Sculpture from Southern Africa and Nigeria

Picton J, et al, 1998: El Anatsui: a sculpted history of Africa

Much of the discussion surrounding 20th‑century African art began with the selection of supposedly self‑taught visionaries for inclusion within the 1989 Paris exhibition, Magiciens de la Terre. This effectively priveleged a kind of Neo‑Primitivism as the acceptable face of a contemporary African art. The problems in this included the fact that artists deemed not to fall into this category were excluded from consideration; and, more significantly, the very idea of the self‑taught visionary was, with one or two exceptions, wrong; for almost all of the African artists in Magiciens were the products of a well-controlled apprenticeship, and their blatantly naive visual qualities invariably derived from

advertisments. However, three more publications have emerged in the last few years, from Japan,

which are not caught up in these diversions, perhaps because Japan is not party to the same histories of modernity/primitivism/neo‑primitivism as Africa, Europe and European‑America. For this reason they shed an interesting light on these matters.

Kawaguchi Y [ed], 1995: An Inside Story: African Art of Our Time Setagaya Mus.

Tokyo Yoshida K & J Mack [eds], 1997: Images of Other Cultures Ethnological Museum, Osaka

(a publication concerned with global misperceptions: Africa, South Seas, Japan, Europe)

Shimuzu T [ed], 1998:Africa, Africa: Vibrant New Art ... Tobu Museum of Art

11. Tradition, imagination, and ideas of creativity

Essays:

[i] Discuss critically the usefulness of Cole's contrast between incremental and innovative change in the visual arts of West Africa. [ii] To what extent do indigenous cult traditions in West Africa withstand, survive and perhaps embody local modernities? Discuss briefly with regard to at least two specific examples.

It will be evident that a sense of tradition is fundamental to many aspects of West African social practice. Yet this does imply stasis, for the word refers directly to the process of handing over from one person/region/generation/etc to another. This `handing over' in turn provides the occasion and possibility for change in art as in other domains of social practice. Tradition is thus by definition not a brake working against creativity or innovation but the framework within which each is possible. Cole distinguishes between incremental and innovative change; and this is here related to a discussion of contrasting modes of creativity: replication, excellence, novelty, etc. In other words, if we are to understand development in art then we must also understand the nature of the changes that are taking place, quite apart from the complex relationships between differing forms of social practice, with art as both context and representation of change and development. Other questions concern the sources of inspiration available to an artist in differing environments.

** Cole H, 1982: Mbari, ch 5, in African Arts, XXI, 2

** Cole H, 1988: Igbo arts and ethnicity. pp 26‑27; The survival and impact of mbari, pp 54‑65, in African Arts, XXI, 2

** Cole H & C Aniakor, 1984: Igbo Arts, Community and Cosmos, Achebe foreword, chs 3 & 4

* Fischer E, 1976: Problems of creativity among the Dan artists, Quaderni Poro, 1, pp 167‑178 Fischer E & H Himmelheber, 1984: The Arts of the Dan in West Africa Johnson B C, 1987: Four Dan Sculptors: continuity and change

* Mack J, 1980: Bakuba embroidery patterns, Textile History 11 pp 163‑173 also published in D Idiens & K Ponting, 1980:Textiles of Africa

Darish P, 1989: Dressing for the next life, in A B Weiner & J Schneider, Cloth and Human Experience pp 117‑140

* Salmons J, 1980: Funerary shrine cloths of the Annang Ibibio, Textile History 11, pp 119‑140

* Heathcote D, 1972: Insight into a creative process: a rare collection of drawings from Kano, Savanna, I, 2, pp165‑174

* Heathcote D, 1974: Aspects of style in Hausa embroidery, Savanna, III, 1, pp 15‑40

Ben‑Amos P, 1980: Patron‑artist interactions in Africa, African Arts, XII, 3, pp 56‑57

Notwithstanding the dominant but domesticated presences of Islam and Christianity throughout West Africa, many other ritual and performance traditions continue to thrive for reasons of local and/or personal relevance, even those that Islam and Christianity would regard as heterodox. It is, of course, important to remember that these traditions are as much part of the art of `contemporary' West Africa as photography, easel painting and printmaking. Ideas about spirit doubles, familiars and spouses are widespread in West Africa, for example. One Yoruba account of twins (Houlberg) is that a child's spirit double is born with it. In the Ivory Coast Senufo women sandogo diviners work with twinspirit familiars (Glaze). Co‑incidentally, 20th‑century European interest in Africa has brought more work to Senufo sculptors than in the past, with contrasting results (Richter). Baule people (Ravenhill, Vogel) have otherworld spouses who can be troublesome, requiring ritual and sexual attention, and a sculptured image. In Sierra Leone senior Mende women, through Sande or Bondo associations (Phillips), enact their mythic status as spouses of the aboriginal spirit inhabitants of the forests Mende people colonised in the 16th century.

* Houlberg M, 1973: Ibeji images of the Yoruba, African Arts, VII, 1

* Glaze A, 1975: Women, power, and art in a Senufo village, African Arts, VII, 3

* Glaze A, 1981: Art and Death in a Senufo Village

* Richter D, 1980: Art, Economics and Change, intro & chs 4, 7, 8

* Ravenhill P, 1994: The Self and the Other: personhood and images among the Baule,

* Ravenhill P, 1996: Dreams and Reverie: images of otherworld mates among the Baule...

* Vogel S M, 1997: Baule: African Art Western Eyes esp ch 7 pp 242‑267

* Phillips R, 1978: Masking in Mende society initiation rituals, Africa

* Phillips R, 1995: Representing Woman (see also bibliography: Boone, Jedrej, Lamp)

In Guinea, Lamp has shown how Baga people, terrorised after Independence into abandoning their masking institutions, have reinvented themselves and their sense of history and identity through masqerade. In Mali, Dogon people perform in masks for the tourists as well as, on other occasions, for themselves. Of course, as you will know from the African Art I course, the relationship between performer, mask and masked identity cannot be taken for granted beyond the need to create dramatic distance. People may talk about "spirits" and "secrecy" but what does this mean in practice? Van Beek (in Vogel, 1991, p 63) writes of Dogon masks that they `enact the bush endowing the village with power and fertility' though just what this means is unclear.

* Lamp F et al, 1996: Art of the Baga: a drama of cultural reinvention

* Van Beek W, 1991: Enter the bush: a Dogon masked festival, in Vogel, Africa Explores, 56‑77 Imperato P J, 1971: Contemporary adapted dances of the Dogon, African Arts, V, 1, pp 28‑33

Ezra K, 1988: Art of the Dogon

12. Popular' art in sub‑Saharan Africa

Essay:

[i] Discuss critically the idea of `popular' art in Africa.

In recent years the term `popular' art has come to suggest a discete category of practice; and in the years since Magiciens de la Terre (Paris 1989), some writers and collectors have priveleged certain kinds of apparently `popular' practice attributing to them a Neo‑Primitivist "authenticity" as if these alone were the acceptable face of a modern or contemporary African art (eg in Ghana, Ga coffin making, and Ewe and Anlo funerary monuments; and the work of some of the now ubiquitous signpamters throughout the continent): please refer back to the discussion at the end of week 11. This created a resentment among artists who had come through the Fine Art departments of West African universities, and who sometimes began to write or speak as if we should thus omit these forms of practice from consideration as `art.' Susan Vogel's 1991 Africa Explores was criticised in precisely this way, for placing artists who were in some sense part of an international art world in the same space with signpainters. Indeed, one might have all sorts of reasons for being critical of it (see Picton 1992, week 11), but one achievement of Africa Explores was to show that the diverse forms comprising the category `popular' had little or nothing in common, other than their location in a largely urban environment; and yet, in practice, printmaking, signpainting, photography, masquerade, textile design, etc, may well subsist as parts of a common set of visual environments; and yet, while possibly functionally inter‑related within local art worlds at some level (eg one medium as source material for another), each will have its own developmental trajectory. We might deconstruct the notion of `popular' but we should not discard the artists responsible for the work.

** Vogel S, 1991: Africa Explores, chs II & III, pp 94‑175; also Cosentino, `Afrokitsch', pp 240‑255

** Barber K, 1997: Readings in African Popular Culture, esp intro pp 1‑9,

* Jewsiewicki B, 1991: Painting in Zaire ... in Vogel Africa Explores, reprinted in Barber

* Jewsiewicki B, 1999: A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art

* Institute of Contemporary Art, London, 1991, Cheri Samba: a retrospective

* Secretan T, 1995: Going into Darkness: Fantastic Coffins from Africa, esp 3‑23

* Fabian J, 1996:Remembering the Present: painting and popular history in Zaire, ch 4 pp269‑296

* Sukuro E, 1990: Art to the people, in J Agthe, Wegzeichen‑Signs, pp 139‑148 (although concerned with Nairobi, and thus, perhaps, beyond the remit of this course, this text is important for its demonstration of the political utility of the visual arts.

* Picton J, 1992: Desperately seeking Africa, N Y 1991,Oxford Art Journal, 15, 2, pp 104‑112

* Picton J, 1991: Nigerian images of Europeans: commentary, appropriation, subversion, in South Bank Centre [Deliss, Malbert et al] Exotic Europeans pp 25‑27

Poppi C, 1991: From the suburbs of the global village .... Third Text, 14

Brett G, 1986: Through Our Own Eyes: popular art and modern history, intro pp 7‑26, and ch 3, No Condition is Permanent, pp 83‑111

Howell S, 1995: Whose knowledge and whose power? in R Fardon [ed] Counterworks account of the political dimension that art exhibitions can entail).

Wollen P, 1993: Raiding the Icebox: reflections on twentieth‑century culture ch 7, pp 190‑210

Puppetry and performance in West Africa:

* Arnoldi M J, 1995: Playing with Time: art and performance in Central Mali ch 2, pp 18‑57

Nunley J, 1987: Moving with the Face of the Devil..., esp chs 4, 5 & 6

In this context, for the particular problems of South Africa see:

Younge G, 1988: Art of the South African Townships;

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1990: Art from South Africa, D Elliot et al,

13. Nigeria and Senegal

Essays:

[i] Discuss briefly the more significant differences between Nigeria (and Natural Synthesis) and Senegal (and Negritude) in the development of a modern African art.

[ii] To what extent is ethnicity a relevant factor in the development of 20th‑century sub‑Saharan visual practice?

The modern state of Ghana achieved Independence in 1957 soon to be followed by most other countries in sub‑Saharan Africa, Nigeria and Senegal, for example, in 1960. In Nigeria in the late 1950s a group of students in Zaria at the very first tertiary‑level institution of fine art in Nigeria, led by Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya and others, formed the Zaria Art Society and set about criticizing their teaching programme for its lack of attention to the indigenous art traditions of the country. They believed, and continue to believe, that Yoruba, Igbo, Edo, etc. could enrich a modern Nigerian art, and thereby a common national identity; but before the decade was out Nigeria was riven by civil war. To what extent, therefore, has that vision been carried through the thirty years since the Nigerian defeat of Biafra. In Senegal its first President, Leopold Sedar Senghor continued to promote his philosophy and aesthetic of negritude, originally formulated in 1930s Paris. Try to read at least one ** reference for Nigeria and one for Senegal:

** Ottenberg S, 1997: New Traditions from Nigeria: seven artists of the Nsukka group, esp pp 1‑47 & pp 125‑153

** Ebong I, 1991: Negritude: between mask and flag; Senegalese cultural ideaology and the `Ecole de Dakar', in S Vogel, Africa Explores, pp198‑209

** Axt F & El Hadj M B Sy [eds], 1989: Anthology of Contemporary Fine Arts in Senegal esp L S Senghor, Introduction, pp 19‑20

** Deliss C et al, 1995: Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa esp C Okeke [no relation of U], The quest: from Zaria to Nsukka, pp 38‑75 & El Hadj Sy, Objects of performance, pp 76‑101. See also: Recollections from Nigeria, pp 190‑215 Recollections from Senegal, pp 216‑237 Notes, by E Court, esp pp 292‑293, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, & movements, centres, workshops, collectives, esp pp 298, 300

** King C & N Durbridge, 1999: Modern art in Nigeria: independence and innovation, in C King [ed],in Views of Difference: Different Views of Art pp 201‑228 (the most recent and comprehensive survey of this topic)

** Ebong 1991, and Okeke 1995 are both in Oguibe & Enwezor, 2000, Reading the Contemporary

** Enwezor O & O Oguibe, 2001: Lagos 1955‑1970, in I Blazwick [ed], Century City: art and culture in the modern metropolis Tate Modern, London, pp 42‑69, 274, 278‑280

* Udechukwu O et al, 1993: So Far: drawings, paintings, prints 1963‑1993

* Jari J [ed], 2000: Accident & Design: Gani Odutokun and his friends, esp pp 12‑25

Bruce Onobrakpeya, internationally the best‑known of the Zaria art society artists, has published three volumes of autobiographical documentation of his work.

Onobrakpeya B, 1985: Symbols of Ancestral Groves 1988: Sahelian Masquerades 1992: The Spirit in Ascent. See also:

* Onobrakpeya B, 1997: Exerpts, taken from these publications reprinted in J Picton [ed], Image and Form: prints, drawings and sculpture from southern Africa and Nigeria pp 21‑24

Uzo Egonu lived the greater part of his life in self‑imposed exile in London, yet his work manifests qualities that Oguibe could identify as related to a village Igbo sense of line, form and space:

Oguibe O, 1995: Uzo Egonu

More than any other single writer, Ulli Beier has documented the developments in Nigeria, thereby promoting the work of artists emerging from Zaria as well as from the Oshogbo workshops that he instituted to give the experience of art making to people who had missed out on formal education. 1960: Art in Nigeria 1960

1961: Contemporary Nigerian art, Nigeria Magazine, 68, pp 27‑51 Beier U,

1962: Nigerian folk art, Nigeria Magazine, 75, pp 26‑32

1964: Idah ‑ an original Bini artist, Nigeria magazine, 80, pp 4‑16

1965: Experimental art school, Nigeria Magazine, 86, pp 199‑204

1966: Naive Nigerian art, Black Orpheus, 19, pp 31‑32, 39

1968: Contemporary Art in Africa

1991: Thirty Years of Oshogbo Art

For further eading about Senegal and Nigeria see:

Harney E, 1996: The Legacy of Negritude: a history of the visual arts in post‑independence Senegal unpublished PhD thesis, SOAS. See also her paper in the Oxford Art Journal, 19, 1

Vogel S, 1991: Africa Explores, ch IV, pp 176‑197, 210‑229

Revue Noire, 7

McEvilley T, 1993: Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale

Museum for African Art, 1993: Home and the World: Architectural Scultpture . . .

Willis E, 1997: Uli Painting and Igbo Identity unpublished PhD thesis SOAS

Okita S I O, 1986: African culture in search of an identity, Nigeria Magazine, 54/1, pp 55‑60

Senghor's philosophy of Negritude was formulated in inter‑war Paris. Wifredo Lam, the Cuban artist of part‑Yoruba descent was there too, as we have already noted, but returned to the Carbbean in the early 1940s in search of a cultural identity,

* Linsley R, 1988: Wifredo Lam: painter of Negritude, Art History, 11, 4, pp 527‑544

14. Textiles in Nigeria. ikakibite and aso oke:

Essays:

[i] Assess the significance of new forms and materials in 20th‑century West African textiles

[ii] Discuss with reference to particular examples or traditions of African textiles the relevance of an understanding of technical means for the assessment of art.

After three weeks each with a heavy reading programme, the next two might seem like light relief. Yet textiles are at least as ubiquitous an art as any other; and at times textiles and dress have played a key role in definitions of ethnicity and nationality. In late 19th‑century Lagos, for example, the question of what to wear had precisely these significances and was vigorously debated among a middle‑class intelligensia increasingly excluded from government by the colonial regime. Then, during the late 20^th century Yoruba womenhave turned to weaving when other professions, such as schoolteaching have failed to provide them with work. As to the cloths themselves, the distinctive patterning known in the Niger delta as `tortoise cloth' ikakibite, is now proven as originating in the Yoruba‑speaking part of Nigeria (the earliest known example was collected in the 18th century and is in the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, see Aronson 1980, p 96) and in turn to have set off developments elsewhere among women weaving on the upright single‑heddle loom. In contrast, aso oke, `uphill cloth' (ie cloth of a kind inherited from the past; or coming from inland; or having high status) is woven by Yoruba men on a narrow double‑heddle loom. Both ikakibite and aso oke appear to be flourishing; and part of the reason for this has to do with the manner in which they continue to function as participant elements in the history and constitution of ethnic and national identities. Ewe weavers from Ghana have also left their trace, especially in women's weaving but also, more recently (as Duncan Clarke has found), in aso oke.

** Aronson L, 1980: History of cloth trade in the Niger Delta, Textile History, 11, pp 89‑107

Aronson L, 1980: Patronage and Akwete weaving,Africau Arts, XII, 2

* Aronson L, 1982: Popo weaving, African Arts, XV, 3

Aronson L, 1984: Women in the arts, in M J Hay & S Stichter, African Women, pp 119‑137

Aronson L, 1992: Ijebu Yoruba aso olona, African Arts, XXV, 3, pp 52‑63

** Clarke D, 1996: Creativity and the process of innovation in Yoruba aso oke weaving, The Nigerian Field, 61, pp 90‑103 (The major source of data and commentary on)

* Clarke D, 1998: Aso Oke: the evolving tradition of hand‑woven textile design among the Yoruba of south‑westen Nigeria, unpublished PhD thesis

Renne E, 1995: Cloth that does not die, , esp ch 2. 4, 6

Perani J, 1992: The cloth connection: patrons and producers of Hausa and Nupe strip weave, in Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, History, Design and Craft

Lamb V & J Holmes, 1980: Nigerian Weaving

Supplement: Kuba: an obsession with pattern:

At the margins of forest and savanna in the Kasai region of Congo/Zaire there is a group of peoples that share similar forms of art among other forms of ritual and social prance. Some of these acknowledge the authority of the king of the Bushoong, one of this group of peoples, and as such are known by others as Kuba. The present dynasty of kings was founded in the early 17th sentury by a dynamic hero, Shyaam aMbul a Ngoong. Kings and people had a profound interest in decorative pattern, and almost every available surface was so embellished, with a particular interest in appliqued and embroidered textiles woven of raphia.

Mack, 1998: Kuba art and the birth of ethnography, in E Schildkrout & C A Keim, The Scramble for Art in Central Africa pp 63‑78

Mack, 1990: Emil Torday and the Art of the Congo, 1900‑1909

Binkley D A, 1987: Avatar of power: southern Kuba masquerade figures in a funerary context, Africa, 57, 1, 75‑97

Binkley D A, 1993: The teeth of the Nyim: the elephant and ivory in Kuba art, in D H Ross, Elephant: the animal and its ivory in African culture pp277‑291

Binkley D A & P Darish, 1998: `Enlightened but in darkness': interpretations of Kuba art and culture at the turn of the twentieth century in E Schildkrout & C A Keim, The Scramble for Art in Central Africa pp 37‑62

Adams M, 1978: Kuba embroidered cloth, African Arts, XII, 1

Blier S P, 1998: Royal Arts of Africa, pp 229‑248 (NB also pp 214‑218, Kongo)

Picton J & J Mack, 1989 [2nd edition]: African Textiles, pp 194‑201

Vansina J, 1978: Children of Woot

15. The fashion for indigo and other colours

Essays:

[i] Comment on the relationship between textile technology, local tradition and West African forms of dress.

[ii] How would you explain the popularity of Indonesian‑derived cloths in West Africa?

The concerns here are mostly with dyeing and printing: with Yoruba adire (and the nature of its taken‑for‑granted "traditional" status), the developments known in Nigeria as kampala , Asante adinkra , and Fante appliqued flags. These cloths are among the local bases for the late 19^th‑century reception of exotic fabrics based upon Indonesian wax batiks, and the rapid development of popular and distinctive patterns that provided a means of maintaining local tradition, proclaiming a modern identity and subverting colonial pretence. Since Independence, their manufacture has been largely transfered to West Africa, with just one factory left in England and one in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, their gentle subversiveness is developed in the work of Yinka Shonibare.

** Jackson G, 1971: The devolution of the Jubilee design, in J Barbour and D Simmonds [eds],

Adire Cloth in Nigeria, pp 83‑93

Barbour J, 1970: Nigerian `Adire' cloths, Baessler‑Archiv, vol xviii

* Cole H & D Ross, 1977: The Arts of Ghana, pp 186‑199 (Fante war company flags)

** Picton J, 1995: Technology, tradition and lurex, in Barbican Art Gallery,The Art of African Textiles: Technology, Tradition and Lurex and the other essays

Bickford K, 1994: The ABCs of cloth and politics in Côte d'Ivoire, Africa Today, 2nd Quarter Domowitz S, 1992: Wearing proverbs: Anyi names for printed cloth, African Arts, XXV, 3

* Enwezor O, 1999: Tricking the mind, in Ikon Gallery, Yinka Shonibare: Dressing Down pp 8‑18

Textiles begin their existence as flat planes marked in the minds of their makers, and as such the concentration so far on manufacture and design is entirely justified; and yet textiles are the basis and substance of another art, ie dress, a topic that, so far, we have only touched upon with the embroidered gowns associated with West Africa Islam, though there have been suggestions of the social and political significances of dress. As to modern fashion, in contrast to the growing literature on African modernities this is a subject on which as yet there is only the one publication:

** Prince Claus Fund [ed], 1998: The Art ofAfrican Fashion, esp pp 15Mustafa H N, Sartorial ecumenes: African styles in a social and economic context Khemir M, Covering the body in Africa: for what modernity Biaya T K, Hair statements in Africa: the mystic and the madman Hassan S, Henna mania: body painting as a fashion statement, from tradition to Madonna Gardi B et al, 2000: Le Boubou ‑ c'est chic: les boubous du Mali ...

16. Art in South Africa

Essays:

[i] `While totalitarian, the apartheid gaze is not total. Its culture spawns a counter culture.' (Richards in Oguibe & Enwezor, p 348) Discuss.

[ii] To what extent is there a tradition of representing landscape in sub‑Saharan African art?

[iii] Compare and contrast the problems faced and addressed by artists in South Africa during and since the era of apartheid.

Art in South Africa comprises `... a corpus of art that constitutes, presupposes and presents a complex set of contrasts and intersections: rural and urban, black township and white suburb, local tradition and a wider art world, community project and university department, painting (and assemblage and collage and drawing [and printmaking]) and sculpture, figurative and non‑figurative, material and conceptual, and so on and so forth; but they do not add up to form a simple pattern or a single paradigm, beyond loyalty to a country with a history so traumatic that it is beyond the imagination of those who have not lived it. This is art‑making that defies classification, just as, whether in subject matter or in the free exercise of artistic imagination, it defied the savagery of apartheid; and even now, though apartheid is supposedly at an end, it reminds us that there is still work to be done in the cause of justice and peace ... the ethnicities of modern Africa are among the elements that constitute local modernities. In West Africa these evolved in the contesting of colonial rule, a movement that also made necessary the consideration of local identity. In South Africa the very emergence of apartheid, for a time South Africa's own brand of modernity, was founded upon a traumatic nineteenth‑century narrative of population growth, land hunger, duplicity, slavery, genocide, fratricide, warfare, and internment. These were the factors that stoked the furnace in which the ethnicities of modern South Africa were forged, Afrikaner as well as Zulu as well as all the others. Modern ethnic identities are, in other words, precisely that: modern; neither `traditional' nor `primitive,' let alone `savage' (and to whom, after all, does the epithet `savage' best apply in the circumstances of the internment camps of a hundred years ago for which, in this reflexive era, even the Queen of England herself has sort‑of apologised).' (J P in J Picton & J Law [eds], 2000, Cross Currents: contemporary art practice in south Africa pp 7‑9)

** Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1990: Art from South Africa, D Elliot et al

** Oguibe O & O Enwezor [eds], 2000: Reading the Contemporary ... see papers by Koloane, Timm, Richards, Enwezor, pp 328‑399

* Sack S, 1988:The Neglected Tradition

* Younge G, 1988:Art of the South African Townships

* Njami S et al, 1993: South Africa, Revue Noire, 11.

* Williamson S, 1989: Resistance Art in South Africa

* Williamson S, & A Jamal, 1996: Art in South Africa: the future present

Berman E, 1993 (and earlier editions): Painting in SouthAfrica

Nettleton A & W D Hammond‑Tooke, 1989: African Art from South Africa

Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1991: Art and Ambiguity

Koloane D, 1995: Moments in art, in C Deliss et al, Seven Stories [see week 14] pp 143‑157

Till C et al, 1995: Africus: Johannesburg Biennale

Arnold M, 1996: Women and Art in South Africa

Enwezor Oet al, 1997:Trade Routes: History and Geography 2nd Johannesburg biennale

Herreman F [ed] 1999: Liberated Voices

Picton J [ed], 1997: Image and Form: prints, drawings and sculpture from southern Africa and Nigeria see Schneider, Koloane, Rankin

Picton J & J Law [eds], 2000: Cross Currents: contemporary art practice in south Africa

Law J & J Picton [eds] forthcoming 2001‑2002: Divisions and Diversions: the visual arts in postapartheid South Africa

17. Photography Essays:

[i] Which would you identify as the earliest of the modern arts of West Africa? Comment on its distinctive characteristics and its relationship with other forms of visual practice.

[ii] Compare and contrast the work of any West African two portrait photographers.

Photography, the first of the modern arts in sub‑Saharan Africa, was brought to Freetown in 1845 by Augustus Washington, one of the very earliest African American photographers; and in Africa as in African America, traditions of portraiture and documentation develop in ways that differ from Europe, avoiding the exoticising and primitivising to which European photographers were prone. It is also obvious that the history of photography coincides with the history of collecting African sculpture for the ethnographic amd `Primitive Art' collections of Europe and America; but if the two kinds of image

making exist side by side, so to speak, one wonders if there is any relationship between them. For

example, is it just the artifact of incomplete documentation that a stiffer tradition of photographic

portraiture is maintained in those parts of West Africa characterised by naturalistic sculptural

traditions, while a more relaxed tradition develops in places such as Senegal and Mali where figurative sculpture is either absent or highly schematic? Either way, photography is clearly popular as a means of enabling self representation: most houses are full of photographs articulating the realities and choices of fashion, status, modernity and tradition; but in South Africa, local photographers were more concerned with photojournalsm, and the brutal realities of apartheid.

** Oguibe O, 1996: Photography and the substance of the image, in Clare Bell [et al] In/sight: African photographers, 1940 to the present, pp 231‑249, Guggenheim Museum

** Revue Noire, 1998 [English ed 1999]: Anthology ofAfrican and Indian Ocean Photography, esp Beginnings, pp 34‑75, Portrait photographers, pp 78‑168

** Diawara M, 2000: Talk of the town: Seydou Keita, in O Oguibe & O Enwezor [eds] Reading the Contemporary ..., pp 236‑242

* Willis R, 2000: Reflections in Black: a history of Black photographers, 1840 to the present

* Schadeberg J et al, 1994: Softown Blues: images from the black '5Os

Magnin A [ed], 1997: Seydou Keita

Bigham E, 1999: Issues of authorship in the portrait photographs of Seydou Keita, African Arts, XXXII, 1, pp 56‑67, 94‑95

Sprague S, 1978: Yoruba photography: how the Yoruba see themselves, African Arts, XII, 1, pp 52‑59

Wendl T & H Behrend [eds], 1998: Snap Me One! Studiofotografen in Afrika

Geary C, 1988: Images from Bamum ( sympathetic colonial photography)

Baldassari A, 1997: Picasso and Photography: the dark mirror, pp 45‑61 (a revealing look at European popular photographs of African people, and the sources of Les Demoiselles)

Bouttiaux‑Ndiaye A‑M, 1994: Senegal Behind Glass (glass painting)

18. African American artists, from slavery to renaissance

Essays:

[i] Who would you identify as the key figures in African‑American art in the period from about 1800 to 1950, and why?

[ii] Discuss critically the principal achievements of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

In those parts of the course concerned with the African diaspora that is caused by transatlantic slavery, there are three themes: first, those elements of visual and social practice carried across the Atlantic in the memories of those taken into slavery; second, the emergence of new identities as African people in the Americas; and third, the documentation in art of the experiences of being Black and African in a strange land. Our concern is not with finding an `authentic' African culture preserved against all the odds. This is not a course about Eurocentric concerns with preservation; and the essentialising of `African culture' is part of that problem. The idea did not work in West Africa, so it certainly will not help understand the complex ethnicities reconstructed, reconfigured and reinvented in the transatlantic world. Elements of West African social practice were of course carried across the Atlantic, and here Thompson is the outstanding and pioneering documentary genius (see especially 1984,The Flash of the Spirit, eg ch 1, Yoruba, and/or ch 3, Fon/vodun; and 1993: Face of the Gods, Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas pp 20‑30 & 284‑306). Yet there are also locations where a sense of identity, for example as Yoruba, is a latter‑day invention. The reconfiguring is part of the history; and if in Africa ethnic identity is not so much a given as a fluid process, how much more is that likely to be the case following the brutal dismembering of peoples and practices that constituted the transatlantic slave trade. There is, moreover, an interesting parallel between the emergence of modern ethnicities in contesting European colonialisms and the emergence of an Africentric contesting of white American hegemonies (a process also entailing the Nation of Islam, and Black Christianities).

African American painters from the late 18th and through the 19th centuries were largely concerned with portraits, landscapes, biblical episodes and so forth. The first to represent a distinctively African American theme was Henry Ossawa Tanner's painting of an old man teaching a small boy the banjo. This, together with the early Africentric and pan‑African interests of W E B Du Bois, Meta Warrick Fuller's sculpture Ethiopia Awakening, and the New Negro movement of Alain Locke ushered in the inception of the first self‑conscious coming together of African‑American intellectuals and artists, such as the painter Aaron Douglas, and the photographer James Van Der Zee in a movement aimed at redefining their place in American society. Subsequently, Jacob Lawrence developed the painting of extensive series illustrating the lives of leading African Americans, beginning with Toussaint I'Ouverture in 1937‑1938, and documenting African‑American experience. Read Lippard and at least one other ** reference:

** Lippard L, 1990: Mixed Blessings: Art in a multi‑cultural America esp Mapping pp3‑17

** Vlach J, 1978: The Afro‑American Tradition in Decorative Arts, intro pp 1‑5, and at least one of basketry, pp 7‑19; wood carving, 27‑43; quilting, 44‑75; pottery , 76‑96

** Driskell D, 1987: The flowering of the Harlem renaissance, Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America, pp 104‑154

** Patton S F, 1998: African‑American Art ch 1, pp 19‑49, also 67‑71; chi, pp 105‑181

** Powell R [ed], 1989: The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism

** South Bank Centre, 1997: Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance esp R Powell Re/Birth of a Nation; H L Gates Jr Harlem on our Minds

* Rozelle R, A Wardlaw et al [eds], 1990: Black Art, Ancestral Legacy, pp 17‑34, 35‑52, 53‑74

* Perry R, 1993: Free Among Ourselves Joshua Johnson p 95,

* Wahlman M, 1993: Signs and Symbols, African Images in African‑American Quilts chs 1 & 2

Boime A, 1990: The Art of Exclusion, ch 6

Omari M S, 1991: Completing the circle, African Arts, XXIV, 3

19. African American artists, the last 50 years

Essay:

[i] Compare and contrast the work of Renee Stout with any one of the visionary artists

There is, as one might expect, no simple or single narrative. Jacob Lawrence continues his documentary work. Romare Bearden develops the use of collage in his exploration of AfricanAmerican experience:

** Perry R, 1993: Free Among Ourselves pp 29‑35, 127‑133

* Wheat E H, 1986: Jacob Lawrence, American Painter,

* Studio Museum in Harlem, 1991:Memory and Metaphor: the Art of Romare Bearden, pp 18‑70

J‑M Basquiat was a controversial figure who became well‑known in a jaded late 20th‑century New York art world.through his graffito‑like paintings and by his acquaintance with Warhol; but is his work at all relevant to a study of the art of Africa? Renee Stout on the other hand draws explicitly upon what she sees as her Kongo inheritance, constructing urban `fetishes' from casts of herself.

** Patton S F, 1998: African‑American Art pp 183‑273

* Rozelle R, A Wardlaw et al [eds], 1990: Black Art, Ancestral Legacy, references to Renee Stout

* M Harris, 1993: The art of Renee Stout, in W MacGaffey & M Harris, Astonishment and Power

* Cooke L, 1991: The resurgence of the night‑mind: primitivist revivals in recent art, in S Hiller [ed], The Myth of Primitivism, pp137‑157, esp147‑149

* Marshall R, et al, 1993: Jean‑Michel Basquiat [Whitney Museum retrospective]

Meanwhile, through the 20th century there are self‑taught and often visionary artists recording their experiences in painting, drawing and sculpture:

** Rozelle R, A Wardlaw et al [eds], 1990: Black Art, Ancestral Legacy, esp references to Bessie Harvey & William Edmundson

* Perry R, 1993: Free Among Ourselves

W Edmundson, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Minnie Evans Livingston J & J Beardsley, 1982: Black Folk Art in America

Stein J E, 1993: I Tell My Heart: the Art of Horace Pippin

Thompson R F, 1993: A chart for the soul: the Kongo Atlantic altar Face of the Gods, pp 48‑95

20. Black Britain andThe Other Story

Essays:

[i] To what extent do you accept Araeen's assessment of the difficulties faced by artists of African descent in this country?.

[ii] Compare and contrast the problems addressed by artists of African descent in the USA and Britain in the late 20th century.

[iii] To what extent are the problems faced and successes achieved by artists of African descent in Britain comparable to the experiences of contemporary West African artists?

Black and African people have lived in Britain for several centuries (John Blank, the Black trumpeter at the court of Henry VII was surely not the first) and with the inception of transatlantic slavery most would have arrived via the Caribbean. Our knowledge of visual artists only begins in the 20th century. The first, as far as we know, was Ronald Moody who came to study dentistry, but took to sculpture instead. However, in the years immediately following the end of World War II, Caribbean people were encouraged to settle here to meet the labour needs of this country; and it is not surprising that many of their children would have gone through the British art educatiion system. Sonia Boyce, Veronica Ryan and Eddie Chambers are cases in point. One hardly needs reiterate the racism still encountered in British society; and Rashid Araeen's 1989 exhibition, The Other Story, was intended todraw attention to the difficulties people of Asian and African descent have had entering the mainstream of a British gallery network. In addition, there are also artists who have had to choose exile, such as Gavin Jantjes from South Africa; while others are part of a later freely‑chosen diaspora, first generation artists such as Sokari Douglas Camp, Magdalene Odundo, Osi Audu, Taiwo Jegede, and second generation, including Yinka Shonibare and Chris Ofili, both well known for breaking through to international recognition, both featuring in the Royal Academy Sensation show. It seemsI that The Other Story is no longer the whole story.

** Araeen R, 1989: The Other Story, the Hayward Gallery

Araeen R, 1990, The presence of Black consciousness in contemporary art in Britain, in C Deliss [ed], Lotte or the transformation of the object

** Tawadros G, 1997: Sonia Boyce: speaking in tongues

** Caribbean Cultural Center, New York, 1997: Transforming the Crown: African, Asian & Caribbean artists in Britain 1966‑1996

** Ikon Gallery, 1999: Yinka Shonibare: Dressing Down

** Southampton City Art Gallery & Serpentine Gallery London, 1998: Chris Ofili

* Chambers E, 1988: A History of Black Artists in Britain

Chambers E, 1988: Black Art: Plotting the Course

Chambers E, 1991: History and identity, Third Text, 15, reprinted in G Tawadros & V Clarke [eds] Annotations S: run through the jungle: selected writings by Eddioe Chambers pp 97‑101

* Walmesley A, 1992: The Caribbean Artsists' Movement, ch 1

Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1986: Between Two Worlds

Owusu K [ed], 2000: Black British Culture & Society: a text reader

Roberts J, 1990: Postmodernism, Politics and Art, esp ch on the critique of ethnicity

Button V, 1997: The Turner Prize, pp 142‑145, 199

Hynes N & J Picton, ?2001 (in press): papers on Yinka Shonibare in African Arts

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Professor John Picton

School of African and Asian Studies, London

BA Course Outline

Academic Session 2000-2001

INTRODUCTION TO THE ART & ARCHAEOLOGY OF AFRICA

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BA: AFRICAN ART I. CONTEXT, REPRESENTATION, SIGNIFICATION 2001‑2002

Professor John Picton

School of African and Asian Studies, London

BA Course Outline

Academic Session 2000-2001

INTRODUCTION TO THE ART & ARCHAEOLOGY OF AFRICA

Back to top BA: AFRICAN ART I. CONTEXT, REPRESENTATION, SIGNIFICATION 2001‑2002

Back to top
BA: AFRICAN ART I. CONTEXT, REPRESENTATION, SIGNIFICATION 2001‑2002