Final Exam African Art History 255

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Nok 500 BC - 200 AD

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not associated with one specific site

Subtractive culture because they would start with one thing and take away from it. Discovered in the 1940s when a farmer found a nok object in his field.

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Igbo-Ukwu 9th-10th c.

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lost wax casting (make everything in wax and cover in clay, then pour molten bronze through and the wax melts out)

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skewmorphs

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(making something out of one material that is associated with another material ex. rope made out of metal) → Nigerian Town is where the pieces were found

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Ife 12th-15th c.

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heartland of Yoruba, big city today→ those with yoruba origin will associate ife as part of their ancestry

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Benin 13th c.

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large and complex kingdom in Nigeria, next to Yoruba area; present → Portuguese were initially impressed by Benin. The oba (king of Benin) could trace his lineage back to the king of ife “oranmiyan” → 1897 Benin kingdom ends due to colonization but country later claims independence

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Postcolonial

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culture in the aftermath of the colonial; parts of Africa (SA) and Asia; 1957-1990

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Aina Onabolu → (1882-1963)

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Nigerian but lived under British colonialism; artist whose achievement at the time was to be an African person who acquired the skills of representation that a British audience could admire

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Pan-Africanism

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An international movement the establishes a sense of unity in blacks throughout the world. W.E. Du Bois is a famous black american pan africanist

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Negritude

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French colonial version of the sense of unifying all people of African descent; developed in Paris; everyone of African descent share certain cultural traits

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Apartheid (1948-1990)

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a system of government based on racial classification

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Recyclia

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Works of art made of recycled products; Willie Bester’s and El anatsui (between earth and heaven); in recyclia, you can still tell that the objects had a previous life. they contain the Kra of the previous use

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Black Consciousness Movement

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Founded by Stephen Biko → based, in part, by Civil Rights organizers in the US → counteract what they had done to black/colored people’s minds → “black is beautiful” was a radical and daring thing to say → the model of success is not white, it can be black too!!

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Sankofa

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“Go Back and Pick” Proverb; don’t forget your history→ Akan/ashanti culture Adinkra print

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Kwame Nkrumah

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Pan-african leader and first president of independent Ghana → made Kente cloth a national symbol

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Kente

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Cloth that the Akan/ashanti culture and Ewe culture made through intense process and set up that can be made and taken down pretty easily

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Ashanti

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largest subgroub of the Akan people→ Ghana

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Ewe

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smaller subgroup along the coast of SE Ghana/ SW Togo

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Bogolan, Bogolanfini

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(means cloth made with mud) → draw around patterns with mud → women traditionally make these → has deep roots in religious beliefs and cosmology but is constantly changing. Bogolon was believed to have protective forces→ hunters would wear Bogolon as well as women who are going through initiation

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Dutch wax

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Comes from Batik indonesian Cloth. Dutch loved it and ironic that this textile is associated with Africa today. It was originally handmade, but to make it more profitable it began to be screenprinted with faux mistakes to imitate it being handmade.

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Authenticity

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an expectation of “realness” based on a constructed definition. How do you prove?

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Subversion

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to assert an idea while simultaneously questioning that idea

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Kra

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life force in the context of Ghana→ Akan/ashanti

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Indigenous African Fashion

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Innovations that are continuous with past, local styles. Not a part of global markets. Echoes the western world

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Classical African Fashion

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Innovations that make visual references to local, African styles.

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Conceptual African Fashion

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Designs that require analysis to find references to Africa.

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Head Nok, Nigeria, Terra Cotta, 5th c. BC

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Farmer found head sculpture → skillfully made → style of subtractive work of art (similar to wood)Open mouth is a symbol of power. Similar to funeral heads. High forehead and detailed eyebrows. Circle on the forehead (soft spot). Subtractive work of art- starting with a large piece of clay and removing clay to make a piece of art. Idealized but not concerned with an accurate depiction of the person’s face. Abstraction from reality. Super sophisticated for the time period.

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Fly whisk handle, Igbo-Ukwu site, Nigeria, c. 800-1000, bronze

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People were equestrian and rode horses a lot. Horses were hard to keep → a person of high status who had a staff of people to care for the horse to keep him from getting bitten by flies→ use of object.Scarification marks people of high status.The rider dwarfs the horse, and just as was the case at Nok, the rider’s head is disproportionately large. The surfaces of the horse, rider, and handle are all embellished in the typical ornate Igbo Ukwu manner. This is the first instance known of an equestrian figure in West Africa.

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Royal figure, Ife, Nigeria, 12th-15th c., bronze

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Large belly means good health.

Lost wax casting method.

Creating a mold for melted metal.

Coral beads→ high power officials

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Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia), Harvest Scrolls, oil on canvas, 1983

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Mixing Christianity with older tradition → Ethiopian kingdoms had healing scrolls (incorporation of Christianity)

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Victor Ekpuk (Nigeria), The Man, His Wife and Son in the Mirror, 2000-2001, acrylic on wood

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He was not Muslim but he used the Qur’an → adinkra symbol. Addresses bias that people can only express their own belief. This sign alludes to his reoccurring themes of love, family, and marriage. However, these universal experiences are only surface to more complex messages. He inscribes the boards with the ideographic system nsibidi along with his own invented script. This combination of forms and shapes emphasizes the power of Arabic andnsibidi as well as the artist's prerogative to use a constellation of signs of his own creation.

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Jane Alexander (South Africa), Butcher Boys, 1985-86, mixed media

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Represented the psychic proportions of apartheid → showed that white people were just as twisted by apartheidResponse to the state of emergency in South Africa at the time. Uses the style, Grotesque, which is used to describe a “feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity”. Metamorphosis, conceptualizes alterity and change. Questions once familiar notions of race. Discomfort and repugnance that she links with human bestaility in violence.

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Willie Bester (South Africa), Homage to Steve Biko, 1992, mixed media

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Willie Bester was dared (through his art) to speak back to apartheid in an anti-apartheid manner→ this piece represents Stephen Biko, who was arrested, harassed, and beaten to his death by police. Stop sign - road block set up to arrest Steve BikoPretoria sign- Where he was taken to prisonYellow car- he was loaded into a Land Rover naked and restrained in shackles

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Mixed Media Creations

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He became known for his signature mixed media creations, using scrap materials – acquired from local dumps – combined with the use of oil paints and photographs, often taken by himself. Over the years, Bester enlarged the scale of his compositions and started using a greater range and variety of discarded material to build up surfaces and increase the sense of spatial extension. These technical developments were accompanied by a growing concern to record the complex experience of township life and his own history within it. His works are all linked, because their subjects, if they are not themselves set in the environment of the Western Cape townships, are invariably represented in that context.

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Colin Richards (South Africa), Veil VII and Veil VIII, 1996, cloth, pins

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Artist based this work on the movements led by Steve BikoRichard’s description of his work: The work of South African Colin Richards, raw in tone and formal in presentation, is a witness to the brutal death of South African activist Stephen Biko. Veil I-VI, Veil VII and Veil VIII is a series of grainy photographs of the bloodstained cell where Biko likely died draped in torn bedsheets like shrouds.

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Berni Searle (South Africa), Untitled, from the Colour Me series, 1998

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Lived under the apartheid system and was classified as colored → she had lots of family members from the Indian Ocean diaspora → in her art, she’s looking back at her history. The thick coating of the powder becomes a silencing, suffocating force, encrusting over Searle's mouth so densely her lips become invisible. The way in which the spices heavily pile onto Searle's chest and fall off around her to form a thick outline convey the weight of the powder and the sheer amount it would take for such visual effects to be reached. Searle makes eye contact with the viewer, engaging us and making it difficult for the viewer to ignore her current state. The shock of being able to look Searle in the eye, and engage so intimately in that regard, and being able to mirror our nose to her nose, but then reach the mouth and find it missing emulates the suffocation and the weight of, literally, the spices, but more importantly, the colonial history and postcolonial legacy of Cape Town.

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Hunter’s Tunic by Nakunte Diarra (Mali), 1994, cotton and bogolan pigments

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Nakunte Diarra was from a rural part of Mali near Bamako → Hunter’s tunic: hunter’s have a dangerous job to kill animals; they need protection when in the wilderness so they would wear bogolan (some are even covered in amulets)

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Ismael Diabate, Untitled, 1993, cotton and bogolan pigments

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He took Bogolan dyes, mixed them with water, and put them into an aerosol sprayThe symbol is from the Komo society and represents malenessWent to art school in Cuba

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Yinka Shonibare (Anglo-Nigerian), MBE, The Scramble for Africa, 2003, mixed media

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Pulled ideas that subverted expectations → Sankofa → was a British child of Nigerian descent, went back and forth between the two and had experienced both cultures thoroughly → went to art school in the UK and suffered from an illness that left him partially paralyzed → member of the British empire. work for Shonibare in its exploration of late Victorian England and its territorial expansion into Africa during the 1880s. The "scramble" for Africa by leading European and world powers resulted in the carving up of the continent, an act that was formalized at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. Shonibare's work depicts this historic gathering, showing various statesmen huddled around a table with a large map of Africa, eagerly staking their claims. In Shonibare's interpretation the heads of state are characteristically headless--and equally mindless in their hunger for what Belgian King Leopold II called "a slice of this magnificent cake.

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El Anatsui (Ghana), Chambers of Memory, 1977, Ceramic

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Renowned international artistIllustrates the artist’s concern with piecing together shattered ideas and histories to form a new whole.

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El Anatsui (Ghana), Between Earth and Heaven, 2006, aluminum, copper wire

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Renowned international artistReferences alcoholism present in some African societies and trade of alcohol.Buys used items because they have Kra. Object is made to look like fabric, replicates the way fabric folds and is draped. evokes the same style as kente cloth; “metal cloth”. (Recyclia)Ewe, from Ghana teaches in Nigeria.highly original creation that constitutes a response to a classic canonical form of expression. It is a powerful instance of the vitality of contemporary expression in Africa and the continuity that exists with the traditional forms. Refers to the West African tradition of strip-woven textiles, in particular the kente cloth made by Akan and Ewe weavers in Ghana. These classical textiles are both monumental in scale and highly sculptural.

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Ghana Boy tunic, Djenne region, c. 1970-80

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Embroidery, indigenous fashion and truly innovative. Bollywood influence. → Ghana boy tunics are symbols of new found status → handmade abroad rather than purchased in Ghana. Employ brilliant colors

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Hamidou Seydou Harira (Niger), Dress, 2009, Cotton and silver ornaments

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Symbolic of the Tuareg ethnic group out of Niger, which is the country of origin for the artist. Artist uses characteristic shiny cloth and uses representation of amulets on the dress.

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Sakina M’ Sa (Comoros), “Giraffe Woman” dress, 2009

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M’sa calls this the “Femme Giraffe” dress. The style represents a very personal response to specifically Africa forms, cultures, and histories. M’sa described her dresses as her revision of the characteristic women’s attire of the Masaai an ethnic group based in Kenya and Tanzania. The garments are an abstraction based on the layers of beads the Masaai women wear. She wanted to pay homage to Masaai women. in a “sober” manner, simplified.