AFRICA: Africa World Press Guide
compiled and edited by WorldViews
VISUAL ARTS
An Integral Component of Everyday Life
"Art is, and was always, in the service of man. Our ancestors created their myths and legends and told their stories for a human purpose...; they made their sculptures in wood and terra cotta, stone and bronze to serve the needs of their times. Their a
rtists lived and moved and had their beings in society and created their works for the good of that society."
--Chinua Achebe, Morning Yet on Creation Day (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1975), p. 29
Art historian, curator, and educator Jean Kennedy signals the importance of the visual arts in sub-Saharan Africa with her observation that many African societies "take art so much for granted that there is often no one word to descr
ibe it." Art in Africa, Kennedy notes, "has always been interwoven—one form with another and all with life itself" (New Currents, Ancient Rivers: Contemporary African Artists in a Generation of Change [Kennedy 1992], p. 21). Clearly, then, an under
standing of the visual arts in Africa holds the promise of deeper appreciations of the peoples and societies whose everyday lives are so infused with art in all its vey, African Art (Willett 1993) and Professor Marshall Mount's investigation of pai
nting and sculpture in Africa during the period 1920 to 1965, African Art: The Years Since 1920 (Mount 1973). Noteworthy books and portfolios published in conjunction with exhibits of African art include
- African Art Portfolio: An Illustrated Introduction (Thompson 1993),
- Into the Heart of Africa (Cannizzo 1989), and
- Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa (Nicodemus 1995).
Jan Vansina's introductory essay "Arts and society since 1935," in Africa Since 1935 (Mazrui 1994), provides a succinct overview of artistic developments in Africa in recent times.
Art of the personal object
Personal objects "fulfill notions of practicality" in human societies and "satisfy the human desire to embellish one's environment," writes Sylvia Williams, director of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Personal objects, she continues
, "exemplify a widespread human impulse to make and use visually pleasing yet practical objects, objects that bring a sense of order to the diversity and complexity of everyday life" (The Art of the Personal Object, Ravenhill 1991, p. 3). Nowhere i
s the interplay between art and personal objects more prevalent than in African societies.
Utilitarian objects such as baskets, bead jewelry, masks, pots, and textiles "form part of the designed environment that creates a person's feeling of being at home," Philip vey, African Art (Willett 1993) and Professor Marshall Mount's investig
ation of painting and sculpture in Africa during the period 1920 to 1965, African Art: The Years Since 1920 (Mount 1973).
Noteworthy books and portfolios published in conjunction with exhibits of African art include
- African Art Portfolio: An Illustrated Introduction (Thompson 1993),
- Into the Heart of Africa (Cannizzo 1989), and
- Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa (Nicodemus 1995).
Jan Vansina's introductory essay "Arts and society since 1935," in Africa Since 1935 (Mazrui 1994), provides a succinct overview of artistic developments in Africa in recent times.
Art of the personal object
Personal objects "fulfill notions of practicality" in human societies and "satisfy the human desire to embellish one's environment," writes Sylvia Williams, director of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Personal objects, she continues
, "exemplify a widespread human impulse to make and use visually pleasing yet practical objects, objects that bring a sense of order to the diversity and complexity of everyday life" (The Art of the Personal Object, Ravenhill 1991, p. 3). Nowhere i
s the interplay between art and personal objects more prevalent than in African societies.
Utilitarian objects such as baskets, bead jewelry, masks, pots, and textiles "form part of the designed environment that creates a person's feeling of being at home," Philip Ravenhill notes, in his introduction to The Art of the Personal Object
(1991). "In large part," he explains, "they constitute the most accessible forms of a given society's visual culture. They exemplify the integration of aesthetics and daily life in Africa" (p. 7). The following studies illustrate how particular classes of
objects used in everyday life in African societies are charged with artistic meaning:
- Baskets:
- The Dove's Footprints: Basketry Patterns in Matabeleland (Locke 1995).
- Beads:
- Speaking with Beads: Zulu Arts from Southern Africa (Morris 1994).
- Masks:
- African Art: An Introduction (Duerden 1974).
- Pots:
- Smashing Pots: Works of Clay from Africa (Barley 1994).
- Textiles:
- The Art of African Textiles: Technology, Tradition and Lurex (Picton 1995); Cloth that Does Not Die: The Meaning of Cloth in Bùnú Social Life (Renne 1995); North African Textiles (Spring and Hudson 1995).
Objects: Signs of Africa (de Heusch 1996) features essays by ethnographers who insist that the form and function of personal objects in African societies must be studied in the complexity of their interrelationships. "It's time we acknowledge,"
editor Luc de Heusch notes, "that by allowing these [personal] objects to be plucked from their context by a certain type of art history—underpinned by considerable dealer interests—we continue to participate, to a greater or lesser degree, in their intel
lectual mutilation." Published on the occasion of the "Hidden Treasures" exhibition at the Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale in Tervuren, Belgium, de Heusch's volume focuses on the art of personal objects in Western and Central Africa.
African art and politics
The relationship between politics and a variety of forms of artistic expression in African societies is the subject of the fortieth anniversary edition of the journal Africa Today: "Arts and Politics in Africa," Africa Today 41, no. 2 (1994)
. Articles deal with the use of "factory printed textiles" in party politics in Côte d'Ivoire, the politics of performance arts in two areas of Mali, interpretations of the role and function of art in Igbo society (as seen in the works of Chinua Achebe),
and the politics of exhibitions of African art.
The powerful role of art in the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa is described and illustrated in the following:
- "Art Against Apartheid: Works for Freedom." IKON: Creativity and Change 2, nos. 5 and 6 (1986). This collaborative publishing effort between Art Against Apartheid and the publishers of IKON magazine pays tribute to the "extraordinary hum
an strength" of activists in the anti-apartheid struggle through the writings and artistic creations of cultural workers from South Africa and the United States.
- Resistance Art in South Africa (Williamson 1989). Artist and activist Sue Williamson illustrates how South African artists (black and white) used murals, posters, T-shirt-art, comic strips, graffiti, sculpture, paintings, and linocuts to
give expression to a culture of resistance to apartheid during the 1980s.
Country/region focus
Studies of the visual arts in various countries and regions of Africa are featured in the following:
- Benin and Nigeria:
- The Yoruba Artist: New Theoretical Perspectives on African Arts (Abiodun et al. 1994).
- Egypt:
- Discovering Ancient Egypt (David 1994); Egypt: Ancient Culture, Modern Land (Malek 1993); Life of the Ancient Egyptians (Strouhal 1992); Monuments of Egypt (Porter 1990).
- Equatorial Africa:
- East of the Atlantic, West of the Congo: Art from Equatorial Africa (Siroto 1995).
- Zaire:
- African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire (Schildkrout and Keim 1990); Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire (Fabian 1996).
- Zimbabwe:
- The Hunter's Vision: The Prehistoric Art of Zimbabwe (Garlake 1995); Life in Stone: Zimbabwean Sculpture, Birth of a Contemporary Art Form (Sultan 1994); and Zimbabwe: Talking Stones, a videotape distributed by Films for the Human
ities and Sciences (Princeton, N.J.).
Topical issues
- Commerce:
- African Art in Transit (Steiner 1994) explores the "commodification" and circulation of African art objects in the international art market and analyzes the role of the African middleman who links those who produce and supply works of art in Af
rica with those who buy and collect so-called "primitive" art in Europe and the United States. On related themes, see Patricia Crane Coronel's essay, "African Art from Earth to Pedestal," in "African Art, Film and Literature," Africa Today 36, no.
2 (1989). Coronel explores the ramifications of removing traditional African sculpture from indigenous cultures and isolating it in private collections, storing it in foreign museums, or selling it through auction houses around the world. A related work e
xamines why African artifacts are "disappearing" at a rate perhaps unmatched in any other part of the world: Plundering Africa's Past (Schmidt and McIntosh 1996).
- Vodun:
- Two recent studies examine the significance of artistic creations in one of the oldest—and most misunderstood—traditions in Africa, the vodun (or voodoo) cultures of North and West Africa.
- In African Vodun: Art, Psychology, and Power (Blier 1995) Harvard University professor Suzanne Preston Blier contributes a lengthy scholarly treatise on "vodun empowerment arts" in two West African nations, Benin and Togo, analyzing the interpe
netration of art, society, and psychology in these West African societies.
- Vital: Three Contemporary African Artists (Nesbitt 1995) examines the relationship between art and vodun in the works of three contemporary African artists who share a common interest in trance, the rituals, and cultural significance of voodoo,
Farid Belkahia, Touhami Ennadre, and Cyprien Tokoudagba.
Artists
Portraits of individual African artists appear in two books that are at opposite poles in style and intended audience:
- Native Artists of Africa (Moore 1993) is a children's book with five chapters and activity pages on a rug weaver, a painter, a traditional dancer, a basket weaver, and a singer-poet-songwriter-performer from five different areas of the African
continent.
- Nigerian Artists: A Who's Who and Bibliography (Kelly 1993) is a weighty library reference volume with biographical profiles and bibliographies of more than 350 twentieth-century professional artists from one African nation, Nigeria.
The life and influence of Nike Davies, one of the few African women artists known internationally in contemporary art circles, are chronicled in The Woman with the Artistic Brush: A Life History of Yoruba Batik Artist Nike Davies (Vaz 1995) and
a videotape entitled Batiks by Nike (Video and Film Distribution, Student Services Bldg., University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA).
"African arts have always maintained an historical importance to social and political life projecting a strength of conviction that defines and distinguishes collective aesthetics."
--Michael A. Coronel and Patricia Crane Coronel, Africa Today 41:2, p. 4
Copyright © 1997 WorldViews. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or stored in a database
or retrieval system, or transmitted or distributed in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopyi
ng, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of WorldViews, except as permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976.