Journal on African Philosophy (2002)

ISSN: 1533-1067

ART AND 'ART' IN AFRICA: CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION, CONFUSION OR COLONIZATION?

Jennifer Wilkinson

The concept of art that we have more or less come to accept is under siege both internally and externally. While some artists challenge its boundaries from within, many artefacts from Africa, a continent often presumed not to have or at least not to have had the concept, stretch its limits. In South Africa, since boundary disputes about art help to keep old racial prejudices alive, clarification is not merely of academic interest but is urgently required to assist in the process of transformation and reconciliation. Although there have been philosophical efforts to include ‘African art’ in the fold, by producing wider definitions and criteria, these tend to be paradigmatic. 1 The result is that African art hovers as a hybrid at the edges with the art of Western countries continuing to occupy center stage. Reaction in South Africa to a situation in which art is measured according to the perceived uncritical assimilation of foreign criteria, calls for conceptual decolonization. The plea is both to avoid the imposition of “categories of thought embedded in foreign languages or philosophical traditions which have exercised considerable influence on African thought and meaning ...” and in the further words of Kwasi Wiredu, to “exploit the resources of our indigenous conceptual schemes.” 2 The flipside is that since all concepts are governed by at least theoretically discoverable criteria and cannot be used at will, if what is made in Africa does not fulfil the logical requirements for art, there cannot be African art. At best, broadened definitions will allow for its uncomfortable accommodation. While the debate continues, curatorial and other decisions, with far-reaching and often unhappy consequences, are made with neither clear guidelines nor consensus.

It is tempting to see these issues as purely conceptual. Some analysis, we think, should tidy up the concept even if this does lead to stretched boundaries and loosened criteria. Aided by the wisdom of hindsight and the advantage of geographic location, I want to propose a different diagnosis of the tensions inherent in the term ‘African art’ and by indicating some fresh insights, find the right place for African art. If we consider the concentration to have been both too narrow (because of inherited and imposed conceptual presuppositions) and misguided (because of the lure of the exotic and of the politically correct), and we look beyond how we think ‘art’ should (logically) be used to how in fact art and ‘art’ have (empirically) been used in Africa, and, if we avoid confusing two categorically different issues, then some ground may be gained and some rifts repaired. This entails not confining ourselves to whether or not ‘art’ can apply in Africa, but involves broadening the scope to see how both art and ‘art’ have been used in Africa as mechanisms within complex shifting power relations. But only then we shall be able to understand why we, conceptually restricted and caught up in political struggles as we are, have, by limiting the scope of African art, missed some of the very processes and examples that can without difficulty justify the application of the term ‘African art’.

Let us, at least for argument’s sake, agree with some current thinking that art includes objects and activities whose aim is aesthetic contemplation where this need mean nothing other than that their main purpose is exhausted by that contemplation. Functional artefacts are thereby excluded. However, an examination of the history of art reveals a progression from artefacts—whose main purpose was functional but with some aesthetic features (however conceived) towards those whose main or even sole purpose is aesthetic. If the history of art has been a process of taking and making and if it is art that has taught artists to see, then this progression is logical. 3 But, even if the history of art is a matter of logic, the history of it that we do have need not be the history that art must logically have. Contingent factors have also influenced the choices and the preservations shaping this progress and our interpretation of it. Similarly it does not follow that the history of art with which we are familiar is the only history of art there has been. However, when we have looked beyond the geographical, social and conceptual confines of Europe and America towards Africa, this history is missing because we have not seen a process of taking and making from artefacts—with some aesthetic features but whose main purpose was functional—to artefacts whose main purpose is aesthetic. 4 I suggest that it is because of the predilection to interpret Africa as not only savage but as also outside known history and because what has come out of Africa has looked strange and exotic, that we have not seen art. We have, I think, been mistaken.

The story of Africa which gives credence to the belief that there is no real art in Africa is well known. When the Europeans ‘discovered’ Africa they found what seemed to them a strange and static culture producing artefacts which were made and used for ‘tribal’ purposes. These, being of archeological appeal, were taken as evidence rather than booty to Europe where they were displayed in ethnic museums with elephant tusks and peacock feathers. Later, moved to cultural museums, they were shown and contextualized with beadwork and weapons. However, after Picasso and others had recognized and used the formal qualities of these relics, they found their way into art galleries and exhibitions—although they were still displayed within a social and cultural context and not as autonomous objects of aesthetic creativity.

The colonization of Africa, largely a process of domination by invaders who, on the assumption of their own natural superiority, imposed their values on the indigenous people in the name of progress, reveals as much about the colonizers as about the colonized. Because there was nothing conforming with the colonizers’ idea of art, no equivalent art institutions and no recognizable artists working in the colonizers’ idiom, the presumption was that there was no art and that the artefacts produced in Africa, although often visually and aesthetically interesting, were only magical and/or religious, and therefore of no value save for their quaintness. And yet, thanks to artists like Picasso, Vlaminck, Matisse, and Derain who used aspects of those African artefacts in their own work, perception of them changed and as a result, many of the objects were uncomfortably reclassified as art. Now we have the situation where objects, supposedly made for non-aesthetic purposes and within a culture taken to be without the concept of art, are called ‘African art’, hence the confusion.

If this story, like many others about Africa, is retold, factual inaccuracies may be corrected and consequently at least some conceptual confusion will be removed. The truth is that when the white man came to Africa, he did not find a culture caught in a time warp but a multicultural continent at only one moment in a long and dynamic process of adjustment and adaptation. The idea of Africa without a history has, by perniciously depriving people of their roots, also imposed and ensured physical, political and conceptual domination.

Once we cease to think of Africa as a continent without a history, we might begin to think of it as a continent with a history of art. Increasing evidence shows that a centuries-old tradition of making objects with aesthetic appeal developed gradually into making objects for aesthetic appeal, following the same logical pattern as Western art. From pre-3,000 B.C. votive figures to functional and religious artefacts with some aesthetic features, production has moved towards artefacts which although useful, are primarily of aesthetic interest. 5 But since nothing comparable to the Mona Lisa, a Shakespearean sonnet or a Mozart sonata was found in Africa, and, since there were no recognizable art institutions, art as a universal concept was taken not to apply in Africa. Not only did the objects themselves not resemble art, on this understanding, no artists could be found.

In Africa, social, cultural and religious circumstances did not exclude the making of art; they merely precluded the making of art in the Western mold. Since African society, being communitarian and collective, instead of embracing individualism, builds itself around the community and the extended family, private acts of individual creation were replaced by co-operative ventures between maker and client. Since the client often accordingly dictates the look and even the shape of the work, the maker assumes the status of an artisan rather than an artist. Materials have also been different and have not included paint on canvas or other conventional media. Even when these were used, their role changed—color, for instance, is used not for expressive purposes but to emphasize form. Hence the conclusion that there is in Africa no art, only craft of varying aesthetic merit. However, it was assumed, if the natives could be taught, they might possibly produce artefacts within the overall umbrella of the concept—although lacking the required historical and cultural background, these of course would be different (read inferior) from the mainstream.

Although what was found in Africa defied precise categorization, it was both interesting and exotic. Unfortunately, the tendency to read an innate Africanness into it has encouraged systematic primitivization and has prevented an open assessment until recently. The romanticized if patronizing assumption that Africa must remain pure and unadulterated is at the root of the further assumption that later African artefacts (and therefore its ‘art’) have not developed but have been corrupted by the influence of the West. But, the story of Africa is also about change and adaptation and African artists like all others, have absorbed and assimilated different influences for their own particular purposes. Although Ivor Powell, in his recent Ndebele: A People and Their Art 6 regrets that this type of progress will lead to the adaptation of the tribal culture out of existence as its art becomes more Westernized, the fact of adjusting illustrates the ongoing process of looking and learning. Ironically, the reverse of what was seen in Picasso as innovative and exciting, namely the African use of modern technology and other Western elements, is interpreted in Africa as proof of the slide towards decadence and inauthenticity.

Colonial disruption and imposition upon the social fabric of African life, all in the name of development, did not only wreck old frameworks, it also replaced existing conceptual schemes. In South Africa this was legalized. Apartheid was a shameful and deliberate attempt to alienate Africans from cultural stimulation and it undermined self-confidence and will. Art and ‘art’ inevitably became part of the processes of alienation and undermining of will.

After colonization and during the period of apartheid, white artists and those involved in the art institutions (mainly white liberals), travelled abroad while their black counterparts remained separated from both international and national influences. But, motivated partly by guilt and partly by altruism and curiosity, there was a move to expose the work of black artists in local galleries on the part of liberal white gallery owners. For similar reasons beadwork and other cultural objects found their way onto exhibitions—but always within a cultural and social context, so unintentionally entrenching attitudes and differences. Given the repressive laws of the time it was also inevitable that white South Africans, educated to think of themselves as European transplants, interpreted their own environment through European eyes. The unavoidable inability to see beyond the conceptual constraints is aptly illustrated by Esme Berman’s well researched and well respected Art and Artists in South Africa 7 which lists only those black artists who had had one-man exhibitions, although most of the work of these artists was displayed in mixed groups.

Simultaneously and underlying these attempts to encourage black artistic endeavors, there were also several hidden agendas. The entrenchment of the remaining vestiges of primitivization increased tensions between on one hand, the expectations for a recognizable African animus and, on the other, the adoption of Western practices which were seen to legitimize art as universal, so allowing it to be subsumed into the Western category. 8 No thanks to the processes just described, the temptation of financial reward for reproducing so-called traditional art in a curio industry has forced artists into having to choose between authenticity and the recognition that can be found only within the perceived non-African—but yet universal—notion of art as it was inherited from Europe. Another consequence, fueled by the resultant insecurity, has been the manipulation of the marketability of black artists which is justified as being in their own interests but has resulted in fluctuating popularity and fortunes for the artists. 9

Democratization with its radical shift in political but not yet economic power, has further muddied the conceptual waters. The saga of the Cape Town Triennial (1982-1991) illustrates the clash between democracy and the Western emphasis on individualism and excellence. 10 The Triennial set out to attract the best artists and judges. Instead of furthering these goals, it foundered when competitiveness, individual gain and honor were taken to be in direct conflict with democratic inclusiveness and group participation. The criteria for selection and awards, based on mutually exclusive world views, led to threatened boycotts and eventually to the withdrawal of the sponsor. 11

If the movements which resulted from the above events are reappraised without the inherited burden of earlier conceptual and political frameworks, there may be some progress in not only clarifying the issues but also bridging some gaps, although, given the complex social and cultural context, there will always be a multitude of directions. Each of these directions deserves detailed research in its own right and each could, I believe, be seen as a bona fide artistic movement. However, our present preconceptions militate against reasonable assessment. Simultaneously, they are mistakenly promoted as the only alternatives to the status quo and, by so doing, they perpetuate the power game that uses art as its pawn.

If my argument is taken seriously, there will be no need to resuscitate artistic negritude as part of the process of decolonization, whatever its merits. A reaction to what is taken to be an exclusively imposed notion, artistic negritude, while succeeding in other African states, has never flourished in South Africa mainly because of the success of separatist policies and despite being fed by Black Consciousness. Nor should primitivization be encouraged for its own sake, although the tourist market leading to a demand for goods which, because in general they do not actually express the values of the maker, tend to be boringly repetitive, will continue to thrive as long as there is another tourist. 12 In addition, the unfortunate results of the increasing effort to encourage and train black artists, steering the misconceived (but well-meant) establishment of numerous arts centers, might also be reconsidered if not actually reversed. Run originally by whites to provide art instruction as close to the townships as safety and the law permitted, these centers have gradually proliferated into a number of Community Arts Centers. The label, however, with its negative connotations, has served to marginalize black artists and, although some good work is being produced, the volume of objects of dubious aesthetic merit has also increased. Many of the works coming from these and other centers, known as “Transitional art”, have been politicized by the underlying implications of illegitimacy and inferiority. Finally, the naively patronizing overeagerness of politically correct white curators to redress past wrongs for the purpose of promoting acceptance and, regardless of merit, to display many artefacts provided they are made by black artists, may be recognized for what it is. It is to be hoped that informed market and other forces will eventually act as correcting mechanisms.

The preceding events reflect art’s role as a political football and add to the confusion. Simultaneously, there has been another movement, almost unrecognized because of the veil of conceptual prejudice and disorder. Despite both destructive interference and the misbegotten but benign blunders of their white colleagues, some black artists often with little or no formal training, have been assimilating and absorbing the influences of other cultures—including European, American and Islamic—into inherited African traits. This they do, not because of coercion or because there has been no choice, but in a deliberate effort to extend and develop their repertoires through experimentation and the creation of new forms. This has now become a reciprocal process. If we stand back from the power struggles and are prepared to reassess our interpretations of art and ‘art’ in Africa, then I believe that we may come to recognize that it is this flourishing hidden stream which fits without discomfort into the real logical space occupied by the universally conceived concept of art. Its history, like that of all histories of art, has been a logical progression of taking and making as the art has taught the artists to see. Much of it is still informed by earlier African influences while some have moved almost aggressively towards contemporary Western forms—including the incorporation of technological and commercial images. This movement, only loosely coordinated more by happenstance than design, and despite the ideologically loaded name of “Township art” and the ongoing pressures for retribalization, is a genuine attempt to assimilate and utilize day to day experience in contemporary South Africa in all its bewildering variety. But because of the context within which it has developed, the works produced have often been interpreted as the inauthentic borrowings of Western features and are frequently dismissed as decadent.

My point is that while we quibble about incompatible ideological positions, the history of art in Africa which fits the universal notion, has been missed because of misplaced and ill-conceived expectations, at least partly as a result of art’s manipulation within political and concomitant power struggles. I propose that the tensions within the term ‘African art’, when seen as inherently and exclusively conceptual, have been misdiagnosed. The lament that Africa is losing its roots and traditions also perpetuates the myth that the only true African art is traditional and tribal (the originals of which are only to be found in the museums and galleries of Europe and America) and which, since it has been made within a culture believed to have been devoid of the concept of art, in any case, so it is said, cannot be art. Since all art depending on “principles based on experience and practice” must be traditional in at least one sense, even this inconsistency in ‘African art’ is probably only apparent. 13 Ironically, since the very concept of art which has excluded African art because its perceived empirical use has misled us, has in fact been quite at home in Africa, it is we who have kept the concept of art in quarantine as it were, by forcing it to live an artificially isolated life and so depriving it of contact with the richness and diversity of other cultures. To sum up: the conceptual debates will continue and contrary to prevailing opinion, I do not think that there is any proven evidence coming from South Africa to suggest either that the concept of art is not universal or that it should be rejected as part of the process of decolonization. On the contrary, there seems every reason to think that we can both eat our cake and have it.

References

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Copyright 2002 Africa Resource Center, Inc.

Citation Format

Wilkinson, Jennifer (2002). ART AND 'ART' IN AFRICA: CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION, CONFUSION OR COLONIZATION?. Journal on African Philosophy: 1, 1