{"title":"The Long View: Leadership at a Critical Juncture for “African Art” in America","authors":"S. Vogel","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00692","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"10-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44621943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 A conservators’ first step is to examine the materials, construction, and cultural context of artifacts. This ensures a full understanding of the objects, allowing us to consider any ethical implications of our work prior to any potential treatment. This is also one of the first ideas that we teach to aspiring conservators. To facilitate this, in early 2020, Bryn Mawr College loaned four toys constructed primarily from colorful flip-flop sandals to the University of Delaware for use in an undergraduate-level course in art conservation. The course centered on learning how to document artifacts, studying materials used in the manufacture of art, and recognizing condition issues. The flip-flop toys provided rich material for investigating each of these areas and challenged students to capture these complicated structures in a report. Furthermore, the students were tasked with putting these artifacts into context. Although they were resourceful in finding references about the artist, it was clear that there was not much available to research. Through the Bryn Mawr Collection online catalogue, they could see that Saarenald T.S. Yaawaisan made the toys, that they were accessioned in 2016, and that Jane Martin had donated them to Bryn Mawr. But who was Yaawaisan? How is he connected to Bryn Mawr? This article will address these questions in more detail and will also put Yaawaisan’s work into broader context. It will consider the materials and methods of manufacture as described from a conservation-based point of view and supported by condition observations. It will also compare them to selected other flip-flop art works by African artists and contextualize them in the use of discarded materials for artistic purposes.
{"title":"The Flip-flop Toys of Saarenald T. S. Yaawaisan in the Bryn Mawr Art and Artifact Collections","authors":"Nina Owczarek, Madeline Hagerman","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00695","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 A conservators’ first step is to examine the materials, construction, and cultural context of artifacts. This ensures a full understanding of the objects, allowing us to consider any ethical implications of our work prior to any potential treatment. This is also one of the first ideas that we teach to aspiring conservators. To facilitate this, in early 2020, Bryn Mawr College loaned four toys constructed primarily from colorful flip-flop sandals to the University of Delaware for use in an undergraduate-level course in art conservation. The course centered on learning how to document artifacts, studying materials used in the manufacture of art, and recognizing condition issues. The flip-flop toys provided rich material for investigating each of these areas and challenged students to capture these complicated structures in a report. Furthermore, the students were tasked with putting these artifacts into context. Although they were resourceful in finding references about the artist, it was clear that there was not much available to research. Through the Bryn Mawr Collection online catalogue, they could see that Saarenald T.S. Yaawaisan made the toys, that they were accessioned in 2016, and that Jane Martin had donated them to Bryn Mawr. But who was Yaawaisan? How is he connected to Bryn Mawr? This article will address these questions in more detail and will also put Yaawaisan’s work into broader context. It will consider the materials and methods of manufacture as described from a conservation-based point of view and supported by condition observations. It will also compare them to selected other flip-flop art works by African artists and contextualize them in the use of discarded materials for artistic purposes.","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"20-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45377021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
At each Venice Biennale, the visitors get to experience the encounter of independently curated national pavilions and the artistic director’s thematic exhibition. The latter is always presented in the same two venues: the Arsenale, a tunnel-like space where in old times ropes for the marine were twisted, and in the central pavilion of the so-called Giardini. This park hosts the national pavilions of the European nations, who are part of the inaugural core group of 1895, whereas the other countries rent sections of the Arsenale and other venues in the city, palazzos or transformed factories for example (see Köhler 2020: 84 for the history of the biennale and distribution of pavilions). Cecilia Alemani was chosen artistic director of this 59th Biennale, which was scheduled to take place in 2021. However, due to the pandemic, the Biennale opened one year later, in 2022. According to Roberto Cicutto, the president of the Venice Biennale, Alemani’s choice to focus on the relationship of human bodies to their environment, their fragility, could have to do with this biennial being entirely planned from video conferences and no physical studio visits (Margutti et al. 2022: 39). Alemani wanted to give space to processes of transformation, dissolve rigid distinctions of gender, and break up categories confining notions of human–animal– machine, as she wrote in the introduction of the catalogue (Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45). Of the more than 200 artists she invited, 180 “have never had their work in the International Art Exhibition until now”(Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45) and 80% were women. As a matter of fact, many artworks alluded to human anatomies, be it replicas, or imagined organs, some in action, palpitating with liquids moving around, others in between actions, as the video of a woman cleaning the organs of a rubber sex puppet between clients’ visits demonstrated.1 Five “historical capsules” interspersed in both venues, showed pioneer work of artists2 exploring different forms of “trans” and “post” that, according to Alemani, offered a “web of references” (Margutti et al. 2022: 46) that encouraged the present generation to continue exploring new territories and cross borders.3 The title Milk of Dreams was borrowed from a book by the surrealist artist-writer Leonora Carrington, who stood up for a world of magic and transformation and was sanctioned and marginalized (Margutti et al. 2022: 43). Paintings by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (Biennale College Scholarship recipient) installed on black and white floor-to-ceiling wallpaper prints welcomed visitors in the
{"title":"We Made It in Venice! But Then …? Reversing Notions of Center and Periphery","authors":"Stephan Köhler","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00691","url":null,"abstract":"At each Venice Biennale, the visitors get to experience the encounter of independently curated national pavilions and the artistic director’s thematic exhibition. The latter is always presented in the same two venues: the Arsenale, a tunnel-like space where in old times ropes for the marine were twisted, and in the central pavilion of the so-called Giardini. This park hosts the national pavilions of the European nations, who are part of the inaugural core group of 1895, whereas the other countries rent sections of the Arsenale and other venues in the city, palazzos or transformed factories for example (see Köhler 2020: 84 for the history of the biennale and distribution of pavilions). Cecilia Alemani was chosen artistic director of this 59th Biennale, which was scheduled to take place in 2021. However, due to the pandemic, the Biennale opened one year later, in 2022. According to Roberto Cicutto, the president of the Venice Biennale, Alemani’s choice to focus on the relationship of human bodies to their environment, their fragility, could have to do with this biennial being entirely planned from video conferences and no physical studio visits (Margutti et al. 2022: 39). Alemani wanted to give space to processes of transformation, dissolve rigid distinctions of gender, and break up categories confining notions of human–animal– machine, as she wrote in the introduction of the catalogue (Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45). Of the more than 200 artists she invited, 180 “have never had their work in the International Art Exhibition until now”(Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45) and 80% were women. As a matter of fact, many artworks alluded to human anatomies, be it replicas, or imagined organs, some in action, palpitating with liquids moving around, others in between actions, as the video of a woman cleaning the organs of a rubber sex puppet between clients’ visits demonstrated.1 Five “historical capsules” interspersed in both venues, showed pioneer work of artists2 exploring different forms of “trans” and “post” that, according to Alemani, offered a “web of references” (Margutti et al. 2022: 46) that encouraged the present generation to continue exploring new territories and cross borders.3 The title Milk of Dreams was borrowed from a book by the surrealist artist-writer Leonora Carrington, who stood up for a world of magic and transformation and was sanctioned and marginalized (Margutti et al. 2022: 43). Paintings by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (Biennale College Scholarship recipient) installed on black and white floor-to-ceiling wallpaper prints welcomed visitors in the","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46106203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 The mass killing of Herero/Ovaherero and Nama/Namaqua peoples carried out by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908 in Namibia (then German South West Africa) is often described as a “forgotten genocide” (e.g., Erichsen and Olusoga 2011).1 When this kind of rhetorical trope gets employed in the art world, it often casts the artist as what Okwui Enwezor calls an “agent of memory,” a figure who rescues forgotten historical traces from a mausoleum-like archive and then presents them to a hitherto ignorant public (2008: 46). Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) by the South African artist William Kentridge is perhaps the most well-known artwork to address the genocide. It operates within the understanding of the relationships among artist, archive, and audience outlined by Enwezor (Dubin 2007: 130). Commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the installation takes the form of a miniature proscenium with mechanized figures and an animated film. Visual motifs such as cameras, typewriters, newspapers, and written ledgers draw attention to how colonizers collected and communicated information (Fig. 1). Animation sets these archival materials into motion while animatronic figures move across the stage. Although the artwork offers few specific details about the historical events it references (labels provide these in some exhibition venues), it conveys the calculated brutality of colonialism and calls on viewers to engage in Trauerarbeit, the work of mourning (Baer 2018: 100–102). By animating the archive, it summons the ghosts of Germany’s forgotten colonial past to haunt contemporary viewers (Demos 2013). The visual inventiveness and conceptual depth of Black Box allow it to hold up to the exhaustive attention paid to it by critics and art historians in Europe and North America, but it is worth noting that part of its success derives from how well the artwork meets the expectations of those audiences (Baer 2018; Buikema 2016; de Jong 2018; Dubin 2007; Kentridge and Villaseñor 2006). It assumes a societal amnesia against which it can perform “acts of remembering” (Enwezor 2008: 47). However, as Kevin Brazil notes, “For something to be rediscovered in a present, it first must be assumed to belong to a past, because only then can it serve as a reminder of what a present has forgotten” (2020). Assuming that the genocide is forgotten, thus allowing it to be rediscovered via contemporary art, is a privilege of the former colonizer, not the colonized. Likewise, taking written documents or photographic images to be the primary evidence of the genocide assumes a Western archive. While these assumptions are reasonable given the German patron and primarily non-Namibian audience for Black Box, they should not be taken as universal. Recent artworks made with Namibian viewers in mind engage with how the genocide is remembered, by whom, and why. They go “beyond the rhetoric of revelation” (Brandt 2020: 123). A brief syn
{"title":"Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia","authors":"P. Wilson","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00698","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 The mass killing of Herero/Ovaherero and Nama/Namaqua peoples carried out by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908 in Namibia (then German South West Africa) is often described as a “forgotten genocide” (e.g., Erichsen and Olusoga 2011).1 When this kind of rhetorical trope gets employed in the art world, it often casts the artist as what Okwui Enwezor calls an “agent of memory,” a figure who rescues forgotten historical traces from a mausoleum-like archive and then presents them to a hitherto ignorant public (2008: 46). Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) by the South African artist William Kentridge is perhaps the most well-known artwork to address the genocide. It operates within the understanding of the relationships among artist, archive, and audience outlined by Enwezor (Dubin 2007: 130). Commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the installation takes the form of a miniature proscenium with mechanized figures and an animated film. Visual motifs such as cameras, typewriters, newspapers, and written ledgers draw attention to how colonizers collected and communicated information (Fig. 1). Animation sets these archival materials into motion while animatronic figures move across the stage. Although the artwork offers few specific details about the historical events it references (labels provide these in some exhibition venues), it conveys the calculated brutality of colonialism and calls on viewers to engage in Trauerarbeit, the work of mourning (Baer 2018: 100–102). By animating the archive, it summons the ghosts of Germany’s forgotten colonial past to haunt contemporary viewers (Demos 2013). The visual inventiveness and conceptual depth of Black Box allow it to hold up to the exhaustive attention paid to it by critics and art historians in Europe and North America, but it is worth noting that part of its success derives from how well the artwork meets the expectations of those audiences (Baer 2018; Buikema 2016; de Jong 2018; Dubin 2007; Kentridge and Villaseñor 2006). It assumes a societal amnesia against which it can perform “acts of remembering” (Enwezor 2008: 47). However, as Kevin Brazil notes, “For something to be rediscovered in a present, it first must be assumed to belong to a past, because only then can it serve as a reminder of what a present has forgotten” (2020). Assuming that the genocide is forgotten, thus allowing it to be rediscovered via contemporary art, is a privilege of the former colonizer, not the colonized. Likewise, taking written documents or photographic images to be the primary evidence of the genocide assumes a Western archive. While these assumptions are reasonable given the German patron and primarily non-Namibian audience for Black Box, they should not be taken as universal. Recent artworks made with Namibian viewers in mind engage with how the genocide is remembered, by whom, and why. They go “beyond the rhetoric of revelation” (Brandt 2020: 123). A brief syn","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"62-81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49288632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 It was on July 26, 2022, on a morning in Dakar, that I had a long talk with Hamady Bocoum (Fig 1), general director of the Museum of Black Civilizations (Fig. 2): He received me quietly, while I observed how the furniture was organized in his office—but mainly looked at the work by Abdoulaye Konaté, in blue tones, that hung on the wall (Fig. 3). During the interview, Bocoum revealed the objectives, ideas, vision, and outlook that underlay the foundation of a museum that intends to create a new paradigm: He defends rebellion creativity and states that they do not follow the pattern of any previously established museum. He also claims a native outlook for a contemporary Africa that is more creative in the historical and cultural world. Adriano Mixinge [A.M.]: Next December 6 [2022], the Museum will be four years old. Do you think this institution has fulfilled its objectives—that is to say, those which fostered its creation?
{"title":"A Museum of Black Civilizations in the Contemporary World: In conversation with Hamady Bocoum","authors":"Adriano Mixinge","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00694","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 It was on July 26, 2022, on a morning in Dakar, that I had a long talk with Hamady Bocoum (Fig 1), general director of the Museum of Black Civilizations (Fig. 2): He received me quietly, while I observed how the furniture was organized in his office—but mainly looked at the work by Abdoulaye Konaté, in blue tones, that hung on the wall (Fig. 3). During the interview, Bocoum revealed the objectives, ideas, vision, and outlook that underlay the foundation of a museum that intends to create a new paradigm: He defends rebellion creativity and states that they do not follow the pattern of any previously established museum. He also claims a native outlook for a contemporary Africa that is more creative in the historical and cultural world. Adriano Mixinge [A.M.]: Next December 6 [2022], the Museum will be four years old. Do you think this institution has fulfilled its objectives—that is to say, those which fostered its creation?","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"14-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43414614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Knowledge” or “Progress?”: Do They Have to Be Mutually Exclusive?","authors":"Amanda H. Hellman","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00693","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"12-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47279427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Located in a gallery next to the central foyer, Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip immediately greeted guests from the main entrance of the Fowler, encouraging them to follow the artist on her travels. The location's institutional framing facilitated close looking for each photograph, while maintaining a steady pace of narrative. The vibrant photographs stood directly across from the soft lighting of the foyer's courtyard, supplying ample natural light for viewers to view the works, accented by soft overhead lighting. The exhibit was separated into two series, Imaginary Trip I and Imaginary Trip II, creating a seamless chronological transition that moved viewers in a clockwise pattern among its four walls, tying them into a cohesive narrative. Imaginary Trip I moved viewers through an urbanized abandoned structure, followed by rural scenes of dilapidated buildings in Imaginary Trip II.Lubondo set the series in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wall text described how the artist focuses on dilapidated, decaying structures that reflected the afterlife of Belgian occupation. Train cars and abandoned schools were the most frequent settings for the series, given their importance to colonial economic maintenance and prosperity. Within a contemporary context, this stark departure from their former use indicated that the structures have been transformed into visual symbols of abandonment, embodying a sense of despair and longing for yesteryear. It is here that Lubondo directly challenged this assumption of total desertion, inserting several people into the composition moving among the ruins. People in these photographs directly interacted with their surroundings; some with intention, others seemingly nonchalant to the physical space around them.Imaginary Trip I was set in an abandoned train car in which a large, unkempt open space is flanked by a rusted metal carriage. It was here where viewers were introduced to Elikia, a woman primarily seen in a red dress, facing away from the camera. In the first photograph, the woman looked up at a chalkboard entitled Situation de Production des Vehicules du 14/09/2015. Directly below, a number of stops were listed with their arrival times. However, instead of standard city names for the stops, they were supplemented with seemingly nondescript words: “Voyage,” “Imaginaire,” “Na Keyi,” “Confort [sic]+ Securité,” “Somba Tick,” and “Assurance.” This labelling emphasized the imaginary element of the series, asking viewers to embark with Elikia to the abstracted stops that complete the trip.Imaginary Trip I continued with the woman entering an abandoned train car, facing away from the viewer and walking toward the back of the composition. In subsequent images, Elikia was replaced by other Congolese urbanites. Both men and women entered the run-down train car, sitting down on wooden chairs, facing the open windows of the rusting carriage on either side. Activities varied: sleeping, playing a game of chess, reading, and e
Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip位于中央门厅旁边的画廊，从Fowler的主要入口立即迎接客人，鼓励他们跟随艺术家的旅行。该地点的机构框架便于近距离寻找每张照片，同时保持稳定的叙事节奏。这些充满活力的照片直接站在门厅庭院柔和的灯光对面，为观众提供充足的自然光线，以柔和的顶灯为重点。展览分为两个系列，“想象之旅1”和“想象之旅2”，创造了一个无缝的时间过渡，让观众以顺时针的方式在四面墙之间移动，将他们绑在一个有凝聚力的叙事中。《想象之旅1》通过一个城市化的废弃建筑来打动观众，而《想象之旅2》则是一个破旧建筑的乡村场景。Lubondo在刚果民主共和国拍摄了这个系列。墙上的文字描述了艺术家如何关注反映比利时占领后的破败、腐朽的结构。火车车厢和废弃的学校是该系列中最常见的场景，因为它们对殖民地经济的维持和繁荣至关重要。在当代背景下，这种与以前用途的鲜明背离表明，这些结构已经转变为被遗弃的视觉象征，体现了对过去的绝望和渴望。正是在这里，Lubondo直接挑战了这种完全遗弃的假设，将几个人插入到废墟之间的构图中。这些照片中的人直接与周围的环境互动;有些人是有意为之，有些人似乎对周围的物理空间漠不关心。《幻想之旅》的故事发生在一节废弃的火车车厢里，车厢两侧是一节锈迹斑斑的金属车厢。在这里，观众们看到了Elikia，一个主要穿着红色裙子的女人，背对着镜头。在第一张照片中，这位女士抬头看着一块题为“2015年9月14日车辆生产情况”的黑板。就在下面，列出了一些站点和它们的到达时间。然而，这些站点并没有使用标准的城市名称，取而代之的是一些看似难以形容的词:“Voyage”、“Imaginaire”、“Na Keyi”、“comfort + securit<s:1>”、“Somba Tick”和“Assurance”。这个标签强调了这个系列的想象元素，要求观众与Elikia一起踏上抽象的旅程，完成旅程。我接着画了一个女人走进一辆废弃的火车车厢，背对着观众，走向构图的后面。在随后的照片中，Elikia被其他刚果城市居民所取代。两个男人和女人都走进了破旧的火车车厢，坐在木椅上，面对着两边锈迹斑斑的车厢敞开的窗户。活动多种多样:睡觉、下棋、阅读、与在场的其他人交谈。这些作品不仅包含了每个人与周围环境的关系，还强调了艺术家对构图的操纵。每张照片都详细描述了一个人与其他乘客的互动，以幽灵般的半透明显示，导致存在感逐渐消失。这与画中的其他人物形成了鲜明的对比，后者是以完全写实的方式表现出来的。Lubondo强调半透明的阈限感，表明每个人各自存在的短暂性。在墙上的文字中，艺术家将这种对转瞬即逝的时间的描绘与正式的殖民存在和独立的刚果民主共和国之间的界限空间联系起来。在《想象之旅2》中，Elikia回归，带领观众在一所天主教兄弟会建立的废弃中学的废墟中进行叙事之旅。环境郁郁葱葱，植物丛生，这是一个隐喻，强调自然环境如何超越了正式殖民存在的象征。Lubondo通过重新安置Elikia和穿着蓝白校服的年轻学生，从绝望中恢复了景观。与《想象之旅1》不同的是，陪同主人公的年轻人直接与他们的物理环境互动，将废墟作为临时的“攀登架”——这是艺术家另一个灵巧的隐喻，考虑到现场的农村环境。除了一张她给坐在临时餐桌旁的两个学生端面包的照片外，埃莉基亚继续背对着观众。除此之外，这位女士的注意力主要集中在学生们的活动上，快乐的玩耍和体力劳动交织在一起:学生们看书，布置家具，举办临时课程。 Elikia的整体存在在照片之间是流动的，因为Lubondo将她插入到一些场景中，在这些场景中，她作为学生的权威人物，但没有将她包括在其他作品中。与之前的图像类似，一些学生被显示为半透明的人物，巩固了Lubondo在整个系列中的风格选择。虽然这两个系列都没有Elikia的传记细节，但Lubondo使用补充文件来确定《想象之旅2》中虚构的学生。在旁边的桌子上，馆长们放着学生们小学毕业证书的复印件。这项名为trotromasses oublisames的工作展示了一系列七种不同的证书，所有这些证书的大部分纸张都被撕毁或丢失。纸张上留下了重要的印刷部分和笔迹，很难解析出文本的确切含义。可以清楚的是，证书签署的手写日期从1975年至1982年不等，这是扎伊尔共和国的重要年份，上面装饰着它们的官方标志。除了明显的退化，每张证书都附有一张学生的照片——他们背对着相机，完全遮住了他们的脸。这与《想象之旅2》不同，在《想象之旅2》中，学生们展现出截然不同的面部特征，强调他们的个人身份。这种定位给每个学生造成了一种挥之不去的人格解体，使他们与被毁的证书一起变得匿名。《想象之旅》的建筑营造了一种叙事连接感，让观众可以按照自己的节奏移动。照片在画廊墙壁上的定位和放置允许观众单独剖析场景，然后将每个图像与其他图像联系起来，从而产生对艺术家叙事的理解。照片尺寸上的一致性加强了整体的凝聚力，强调了每个场景对这个系列的重要性。在艺术家的鼓励和策展人的执行下，参观者被鼓励按照照片出现在墙上的顺序观看照片，这个系列可以在门厅的任何起点观看，让参观者从任何有利的角度理解作品的叙事方面。展览策展人Erica P. Jones和Elaine Eriksen Sullivan要求金沙萨美术学院(Kinshasa academmie des Beaux-Arts)的学生写一系列个人反思和对系列作品的回应。这些反思被作为补充文字添加到一些照片上，并进一步表达了它们对刚果历史和文化的解释。学院的选段详细描述了学生们如何解读Lubondo的作品，将他们作为当代刚果人在现代全球背景下的经历联系起来。这是一个明智的策展决定，因为它为该系列的叙事增添了额外的背景，并为不熟悉刚果民主共和国的观众提供了一个关键的切入点。《想象之旅》吸引了专家和外行的目光，它建立在不断增强的非洲摄影词典的基础上，这些摄影词典早已因诸如“视线:非洲摄影师1940年至今”(古根海姆，1996年)和“快速判断:当代非洲摄影的新立场”(国际摄影中心，2006年)等展览而闻名，以及成立于1994年的巴马科相遇双年展。《想象之旅》展示了当代非洲摄影中经常出现的个人和集体叙事的交集，详细描述了自我与整体作为主体和客体之间的复杂关系。Lubondo的照片利用了这一丰富的传统，将主题扩展到当代刚果民主共和国。对于那些刚进入这个领域的人来说，“想象之旅”是对当代非洲摄影的绝佳介绍，因为策展人提供了充足的历史背景。墙上的文字和补充材料鼓励所有观众对想象之旅进行自己的解读，将他们对物理空间的转变及其对社会发展的影响的理解联系起来。
{"title":"Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip curated by Erica P. Jones and Elaine Eriksen Sullivan","authors":"Aisha M. Muhammad","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00732","url":null,"abstract":"Located in a gallery next to the central foyer, Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip immediately greeted guests from the main entrance of the Fowler, encouraging them to follow the artist on her travels. The location's institutional framing facilitated close looking for each photograph, while maintaining a steady pace of narrative. The vibrant photographs stood directly across from the soft lighting of the foyer's courtyard, supplying ample natural light for viewers to view the works, accented by soft overhead lighting. The exhibit was separated into two series, Imaginary Trip I and Imaginary Trip II, creating a seamless chronological transition that moved viewers in a clockwise pattern among its four walls, tying them into a cohesive narrative. Imaginary Trip I moved viewers through an urbanized abandoned structure, followed by rural scenes of dilapidated buildings in Imaginary Trip II.Lubondo set the series in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wall text described how the artist focuses on dilapidated, decaying structures that reflected the afterlife of Belgian occupation. Train cars and abandoned schools were the most frequent settings for the series, given their importance to colonial economic maintenance and prosperity. Within a contemporary context, this stark departure from their former use indicated that the structures have been transformed into visual symbols of abandonment, embodying a sense of despair and longing for yesteryear. It is here that Lubondo directly challenged this assumption of total desertion, inserting several people into the composition moving among the ruins. People in these photographs directly interacted with their surroundings; some with intention, others seemingly nonchalant to the physical space around them.Imaginary Trip I was set in an abandoned train car in which a large, unkempt open space is flanked by a rusted metal carriage. It was here where viewers were introduced to Elikia, a woman primarily seen in a red dress, facing away from the camera. In the first photograph, the woman looked up at a chalkboard entitled Situation de Production des Vehicules du 14/09/2015. Directly below, a number of stops were listed with their arrival times. However, instead of standard city names for the stops, they were supplemented with seemingly nondescript words: “Voyage,” “Imaginaire,” “Na Keyi,” “Confort [sic]+ Securité,” “Somba Tick,” and “Assurance.” This labelling emphasized the imaginary element of the series, asking viewers to embark with Elikia to the abstracted stops that complete the trip.Imaginary Trip I continued with the woman entering an abandoned train car, facing away from the viewer and walking toward the back of the composition. In subsequent images, Elikia was replaced by other Congolese urbanites. Both men and women entered the run-down train car, sitting down on wooden chairs, facing the open windows of the rusting carriage on either side. Activities varied: sleeping, playing a game of chess, reading, and e","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The idea of decolonization has come to the fore in recent years’ scholarship on cultural heritage. Not that the concept is a new one: but with Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall protests roiling the (haltingly) postcolonial world, it is entirely expected that heritage studies publications on the topic would grow. Not, either, that heritage scholars who are interested in the question of the past in the present had utterly failed to consider decolonization, but like pop culture, academia has its trends. The problem, for researchers, is often the mismatch between the speed with which trends flow and ebb, and the relentlessly glacial pace of funding applications, fieldwork, and publication. Some scholars have answered this eternal, and eternally shifting, need for applicability with tendentious conclusions about how their work responds to this decolonial focus. Others, more fortunate, have been able to draw upon years of preexisting research that legitimately rises to meet the moment. Among the latter is Ferdinand de Jong's new book on Senegalese cultural heritage and imaginings of the utopian future, Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal.The discussion of Eurocentrism and colonial dynamics in heritage practice (and scholarship) has existed in the discipline of heritage studies since before this most recent surge in interest. Works on heritage by African scholars and scholars of Africa have been at the forefront of this conversation: it is obviously crucial to discuss colonialism and its legacies, along with prospects for countering them, when considering a continent whose present-day political arrangements and position in modern racial-capitalist orders have been drastically shaped by colonial forces. Such factors have naturally impacted heritage practice, too, from destroying traditional methods of management to alienating communities from their own heritage. Today, governments, civil society actors, and communities across Africa are reclaiming such heritage in the pursuit of goals like cultural revitalization. This project requires reckoning with the impacts of colonialism past and present, which includes not only how colonial administrations intervened in African heritage practices, but also how conditions of heritage-making today are shaped by both histories and ongoing dynamics of global colonialism. Scholarship has included both a consideration of colonialism and its impacts and decolonizing responses—such as reanimating locally grounded ways of thinking about heritage, in which contributions by African archaeologists and heritage scholars such as Shadreck Chirikure (2021) and Ashton Sinamai (2021) are vitally important. Along with excavating the past, these efforts are interested in developing new orientations toward the present and the future.Decolonizing Heritage considers the future not merely as a temporal concern for heritage practice, but also as an object of historical interest. What visions of the future did the past d
非殖民化的思想在近年来的文化遗产学术研究中得到了突出的体现。这并不是一个新概念:但随着“黑人的命也是命”和“罗德岛必须沦陷”抗议活动(断断续续地)搅乱了后殖民世界，完全可以预期，有关这一主题的遗产研究出版物将会增多。也不是说那些对过去和现在的问题感兴趣的遗产学者完全没有考虑到非殖民化，而是像流行文化一样，学术界有它的趋势。对研究人员来说，问题往往是趋势的涨落速度与资助申请、实地考察和发表的无情的冰川速度之间的不匹配。一些学者对这种永恒的、不断变化的适用性需求的回答，是带有倾倾性的结论，即他们的研究如何回应这种非殖民化的焦点。其他人，更幸运的是，已经能够利用多年来已有的研究，合理地上升到满足这一时刻。后者包括费迪南德·德容(Ferdinand de Jong)关于塞内加尔文化遗产和乌托邦未来想象的新书《非殖民化遗产:塞内加尔修复的时间》。在最近的兴趣激增之前，关于遗产实践(和学术)中的欧洲中心主义和殖民动态的讨论已经存在于遗产研究学科中。非洲学者和非洲学者关于遗产的著作一直处于这场对话的前沿:当考虑到一个当今政治安排和现代种族资本主义秩序中的地位已被殖民势力彻底塑造的大陆时，讨论殖民主义及其遗产，以及对抗它们的前景，显然是至关重要的。这些因素自然也影响了遗产的实践，从破坏传统的管理方法到疏远社区与自己的遗产。今天，非洲各地的政府、公民社会行动者和社区在追求文化振兴等目标的过程中，正在收回这些遗产。该项目需要考虑过去和现在殖民主义的影响，不仅包括殖民政府如何干预非洲遗产实践，还包括今天的遗产制作条件如何受到全球殖民主义的历史和持续动态的影响。学术研究既包括对殖民主义及其影响的考虑，也包括对非殖民化的回应——比如重新激活基于当地的遗产思考方式，在这方面，非洲考古学家和遗产学者(如Shadreck Chirikure(2021)和Ashton Sinamai(2021))的贡献至关重要。在挖掘过去的同时，这些努力也致力于发展面向现在和未来的新方向。非殖民化遗产不仅将未来视为遗产实践的暂时关注，而且还将其视为历史兴趣的对象。过去发展了什么样的未来愿景，这些愿景如何影响今天的遗产实践——尤其是对非殖民化的展望?费迪南德·德容很好地考虑了这些问题。他对塞内加尔遗产的研究可以追溯到几十年前，就像他对本书几个主题的关注一样;他对非殖民化的兴趣并不是为了迎合时代精神的复古时尚。他早期合编的著作《回收遗产:西非遗产的另一种想象》(2007年)提出了关于在非殖民化遗产中反复出现的复杂遗产的改造和重新利用的想法。德容出版了另一本关于塞内加尔的书(2007年)，并发表了许多文章，他是研究这个国家英语遗产的杰出学者——尽管奇怪的是，这本书没有明确地将其在这段漫长的交战历史中的当前争论放在背景中。致谢部分提供了唯一的提示，说明本书的实地调查是何时进行的(显然至少有一个很长的时期可以追溯到2012-2013年)，尽管看起来，考虑到文本中分析的偶然事件的日期，这本书包含了在此期间之前和之后的许多年的工作。关于德容追求他的研究问题的方法也仍然模糊不清。在旅游、节日和实地考察中，某种参与性的观察是显而易见的，就像对档案、公众和大众媒体以及对话的关注一样(“采访”?很难说)，所有这些显然都是长期的民族志参与。不过，这里的透明度只会让这本书受益。然而，撇开方法论的问题不谈，德容从这一模糊的背景中产生的是对遗产非殖民化讨论的密集、话语性、发人深省的贡献。这个词到底是什么意思?而伊芙·塔克和K。 韦恩·杨(2012)提醒我们，非殖民化“不是一个隐喻”，到目前为止，这个词已经变得庞大、扩散和不明确，因为实现非殖民化的实际路线、它的背景，甚至它的目的都是非常不确定和有争议的。作为解决这个问题的方法，德容对塞内加尔遗产的描绘是一种论证，通过对过去、现在和未来的一系列方法进行追溯，最终由对重新工作时间、对乌托邦的追求和对nsamugritude的泛非项目的主题考虑来排序。德容提出、翻看并挑选了一系列遗产元素:联合国教科文组织世界遗产“奴隶之家”，被解释为在跨大西洋贸易中被奴役的西非人被迫登船的地方;一个叫做“Fanal”的元宵节;这些妇女的存在与法国殖民地的阶级、种族和奴隶贸易经济纠缠在一起;苏菲朝圣和祈祷;步兵营士兵纪念碑;两所教育塞内加尔精英的学校，一所已成废墟，另一所从未开放;黑人文明博物馆(Museum of Black Civilizations)，这是塞内加尔对以欧洲为中心的非洲博物馆容量被削减的回应;以及塞内加尔殖民和后殖民遗产中大大小小的其他做法和行为者。这些案例研究非常值得读者花时间，因为它们以历史为基础，对遗产实践进行了深入的调查，并受益于对政治潮流的敏锐观察，即使这些章节有时可能会在细节的重压下崩溃。通过这种对塞内加尔遗产实践的片段式方法，de Jong展示了一个项目，该项目关注的是回收、改造、重新利用和改造遗产，以修复或无论如何都要接受殖民主义令人担忧的遗产，以及关于非民族、泛非洲团结的想法。但“达成协议”的方式可能暗示，这不仅仅是一个向后看的项目。相反，德容的目的是为一项多时间的研究做出贡献，该研究的目标是所有时间中最棘手的:未来。德容在《感恩》一书中为这种努力找到了一个统一的框架，这是一种对黑人的文学和哲学方法，以及对非洲和散居海外的黑人文明的价值观(和评价)。“感恩”是由三位杰出的人物共同开发的，他们是:艾姆萨伊、达马斯和塞内加尔的联系——塞内加尔独立后的总统桑戈尔。虽然我最初是作为一名曾经学习法语文学的学生接触到这一运动的，但德容强调了“感恩”的政治价值。他注意到，“感恩”计划如何涉及面对殖民主义时的主权问题，以及贯穿全书的一条线索，即追求面向构建另一种未来的泛非团结。在多大程度上，桑戈尔(以及Damas和csamsaire)的思想能够真正推动21世纪的遗产实践?在这里，德容对某些关键要素的模糊提出了一个问题:为了全面澄清nsamudegrude，他在脚注中向读者推荐了《斯坦福哲学百科全书》。很好!我去了那里，发现里面对这个概念及其发展进行了非常有用、深入的论述，如果把这些内容写进书里，也会同样有用。De Jong最终主张在塞内加尔遗产的乌托邦想象中存在n<s:1>感恩的遗产(第31页)，而不是在遗产部门明确引用桑戈尔本人(除了桑戈尔参与《奴隶之家》的解释)。很好。在《非殖民化的遗产》一书中，将n<s:1>感恩作为一种解释手段，其优点之一是，这样做有助于德容避开作为一名研究非洲的欧洲学者所固有的一些问题:非殖民化思想及其在这里的表现是本土的，由非洲人和世界各地的散居黑人创造，也为他们服务。De Jong的目标是挖掘n<s:1>感恩计划中“不合适时的乌托邦”，因为它们体现在遗产中:“对过去的记忆和遗忘……[和]各种未实现的未来”，这些都在塞内加尔的遗产制作中挥之不去(第17页)。他认为，这不仅仅是对塞内加尔传统习俗的解构，而是在面对各种后殖民失败的情况下，想象一个非殖民化的未来，需要重新审视过去想象未来的方式，比如通过感恩和泛非主义。在这一点上，德容确定了一种“非洲怀旧”，它“作为对殖民项目的批评而出现，并被认为是一种修复工作”(第32页)。修复是这里的关键词。de Jong在
{"title":"Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal by Ferdinand de Jong","authors":"Annalisa Bolin","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00735","url":null,"abstract":"The idea of decolonization has come to the fore in recent years’ scholarship on cultural heritage. Not that the concept is a new one: but with Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall protests roiling the (haltingly) postcolonial world, it is entirely expected that heritage studies publications on the topic would grow. Not, either, that heritage scholars who are interested in the question of the past in the present had utterly failed to consider decolonization, but like pop culture, academia has its trends. The problem, for researchers, is often the mismatch between the speed with which trends flow and ebb, and the relentlessly glacial pace of funding applications, fieldwork, and publication. Some scholars have answered this eternal, and eternally shifting, need for applicability with tendentious conclusions about how their work responds to this decolonial focus. Others, more fortunate, have been able to draw upon years of preexisting research that legitimately rises to meet the moment. Among the latter is Ferdinand de Jong's new book on Senegalese cultural heritage and imaginings of the utopian future, Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal.The discussion of Eurocentrism and colonial dynamics in heritage practice (and scholarship) has existed in the discipline of heritage studies since before this most recent surge in interest. Works on heritage by African scholars and scholars of Africa have been at the forefront of this conversation: it is obviously crucial to discuss colonialism and its legacies, along with prospects for countering them, when considering a continent whose present-day political arrangements and position in modern racial-capitalist orders have been drastically shaped by colonial forces. Such factors have naturally impacted heritage practice, too, from destroying traditional methods of management to alienating communities from their own heritage. Today, governments, civil society actors, and communities across Africa are reclaiming such heritage in the pursuit of goals like cultural revitalization. This project requires reckoning with the impacts of colonialism past and present, which includes not only how colonial administrations intervened in African heritage practices, but also how conditions of heritage-making today are shaped by both histories and ongoing dynamics of global colonialism. Scholarship has included both a consideration of colonialism and its impacts and decolonizing responses—such as reanimating locally grounded ways of thinking about heritage, in which contributions by African archaeologists and heritage scholars such as Shadreck Chirikure (2021) and Ashton Sinamai (2021) are vitally important. Along with excavating the past, these efforts are interested in developing new orientations toward the present and the future.Decolonizing Heritage considers the future not merely as a temporal concern for heritage practice, but also as an object of historical interest. What visions of the future did the past d","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lagos, in West Africa, by virtue of its strategic coastal location, has played very significant roles in human development and modernity. It has for centuries been a hub of economic, political, and artistic activities. Lagos has been a favorite subject of artists, who have depicted its physical and cultural uniqueness variously. This paper examines Lagos generally, and how parts of its history, geography, culture, myths, cosmopolitan nature, the joy and challenges of living in it have inspired artistic production by some of its creative minds.The study seeks to engage and explain the works of contemporary visual artists such as Ghariokwu Lemi, Emmanuel Ekefrey, Bimbo Adenugba, Dil Humphrey Umezulike, Bolaji Ogunwo, Ayo Owolabi, Taiwo Oye, Kehinde Sanwo, Adekusibe Odunfa, Abiodun Olaku, Lukman Karounwi, Bodun Shodeinde, and Mavua Lessor, in the context of their representation of Lagos. Paintings, sculptures and drawing including Lagos Shitty (2001), Survival of the Fittest (2003), Waiting for the Bus (2003), Oshodi Isale (2007), Eyo (2012), Eja Nla II (2017), Apongbon Exit (2019), and Onilegogoro (2022) are analyzed. The artworks were chosen because they depict salient physical aspects and realities about Lagos. In addition, they also document iconographic features such as the Eyo,1molue,2 and White Cap Chiefs, which are unique to Lagos.The study is carried out through observation and analysis of visual artworks produced or influenced by Lagos or factors of its existence. Galleries, studios, and websites were visited while books and journals were consulted and a few interviews conducted to gauge the different ways that Lagos has been portrayed. The meaning and reason for distinct Lagos features such as Eyo, molue, danfo,3 the color yellow, the Idejo chiefs,4 traffic jams and congestion portrayed in the artworks are also explained.Lagos, as far back as the eighteenth century, has been a destination for regional and global economic activities (Olatunbosun 1981). Lagos is evidently the artistic capital of Nigeria, a melting pot for all the cultures in Nigeria, the West African coast, and other parts of the world because of the economic opportunities it offers, its urbanity, and its status as a former capital of Nigeria, all of which attract people to dwell in it (Filani 2001; jegede 2001; Sonuga 1987). Lagos, in spite of its multicultural nature, is largely a Yoruba city,5 founded by Ogunfunminire and Olofin, princes from Ile-Ife, the ancestral home of the Yoruba (Alli 2002; Sonuga 1987). They belonged to the Awori, a subgroup of the Yoruba who settled and occupied many parts of Lagos which, according to Sonuga, still retain their original names. Consequently, Yoruba language, beliefs, and cultural practices are preeminent in Lagos.Lagos, also known as Eko6 (Sonuga 1987: 7; Adepegba 2017: 37), would appear to have a centripetal force that draws to it people from far and near. This supposition is affirmed by Olumhense (2010: 69): “Lagos is a national
{"title":"Lagos and Its Representation in Visual Arts","authors":"Akinwale Onipede","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00728","url":null,"abstract":"Lagos, in West Africa, by virtue of its strategic coastal location, has played very significant roles in human development and modernity. It has for centuries been a hub of economic, political, and artistic activities. Lagos has been a favorite subject of artists, who have depicted its physical and cultural uniqueness variously. This paper examines Lagos generally, and how parts of its history, geography, culture, myths, cosmopolitan nature, the joy and challenges of living in it have inspired artistic production by some of its creative minds.The study seeks to engage and explain the works of contemporary visual artists such as Ghariokwu Lemi, Emmanuel Ekefrey, Bimbo Adenugba, Dil Humphrey Umezulike, Bolaji Ogunwo, Ayo Owolabi, Taiwo Oye, Kehinde Sanwo, Adekusibe Odunfa, Abiodun Olaku, Lukman Karounwi, Bodun Shodeinde, and Mavua Lessor, in the context of their representation of Lagos. Paintings, sculptures and drawing including Lagos Shitty (2001), Survival of the Fittest (2003), Waiting for the Bus (2003), Oshodi Isale (2007), Eyo (2012), Eja Nla II (2017), Apongbon Exit (2019), and Onilegogoro (2022) are analyzed. The artworks were chosen because they depict salient physical aspects and realities about Lagos. In addition, they also document iconographic features such as the Eyo,1molue,2 and White Cap Chiefs, which are unique to Lagos.The study is carried out through observation and analysis of visual artworks produced or influenced by Lagos or factors of its existence. Galleries, studios, and websites were visited while books and journals were consulted and a few interviews conducted to gauge the different ways that Lagos has been portrayed. The meaning and reason for distinct Lagos features such as Eyo, molue, danfo,3 the color yellow, the Idejo chiefs,4 traffic jams and congestion portrayed in the artworks are also explained.Lagos, as far back as the eighteenth century, has been a destination for regional and global economic activities (Olatunbosun 1981). Lagos is evidently the artistic capital of Nigeria, a melting pot for all the cultures in Nigeria, the West African coast, and other parts of the world because of the economic opportunities it offers, its urbanity, and its status as a former capital of Nigeria, all of which attract people to dwell in it (Filani 2001; jegede 2001; Sonuga 1987). Lagos, in spite of its multicultural nature, is largely a Yoruba city,5 founded by Ogunfunminire and Olofin, princes from Ile-Ife, the ancestral home of the Yoruba (Alli 2002; Sonuga 1987). They belonged to the Awori, a subgroup of the Yoruba who settled and occupied many parts of Lagos which, according to Sonuga, still retain their original names. Consequently, Yoruba language, beliefs, and cultural practices are preeminent in Lagos.Lagos, also known as Eko6 (Sonuga 1987: 7; Adepegba 2017: 37), would appear to have a centripetal force that draws to it people from far and near. This supposition is affirmed by Olumhense (2010: 69): “Lagos is a national ","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"273 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The interest of Gaëlle Beaujean's work, L'Art de cour d'Abomey, le sens des objets, resides in the fact that it constitutes a meritorious assemblage of knowledge about Abomey, capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, situated in the southern part of present-day Republic of Benin. It does not, however, fulfill the expectations raised by the second part of its title.Abomey and the Fon kingdom of Dahomey are at the heart of what is certainly the best documented and known region of west Africa. Indeed, many voyagers, diplomats, traders, and navigators left logbooks and travel reports. During the French war of conquest and colonization, soldiers in their travel diaries or field notes, and then administrators, geographers, and historians, made sometimes exceptional contributions to the knowledge of this kingdom and its historical, political, religious, social, and artistic particularities.Since the independence of the colony of Dahomey in 1960, interest in the ancient kingdom of Abomey among European researchers, photographers, museum collectors, ethnographers, as well as Beninois historians, linguists, musicologists, and geographers has not diminished, and the corpus of erudite studies has been amplified and enriched.UNESCO recognized the uniqueness and quality of the royal buildings of Dahomey, acknowledging, in 1985, their distinctive aesthetics, architecture, and history. Later, in 2008, UNESCO included in their Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity certain ceremonies and aspects—shared at the regional level—of the Gelede complex, as well as the practices, practitioners, modes of apprenticeship, tales, and myths of the divination system of the Fa (Faa, Ifa). A compilation that addresses itself to a public larger than that of specialists in these matters is thus always of interest.This work has many positive aspects. It clarifies and calls attention to historical details that are known little or not at all. It is also a deluxe edition with abundant iconography, which includes color photographs of well known pieces as well as rarer objects.Based on the title, Art de cour d'Abomey, le sens des objets, however, one expects to discover new perspectives on the art of this realm, when in fact this is for the most part a history textbook.This book is based on previously published studies or narratives, ranging from those datable to the seventeenth century (Delbée 1671), to recent contributions, all of which can fill the shelves of a library. The first notable reports on the region, dating from the middle seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, relate not to Abomey, however, but to the kingdom of Allada (Ardres, Ardra) and the small states of the coast (Des Marchais 1730).The author maintains a certain ambiguity by evoking a king of Abomey from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The emergence of this kingdom, however, took time. Upon leaving Allada, the group of individuals, related by kinship and alliance, who wou
关于这本书的来源，令人遗憾的是，它们没有被一贯引用，尽管它们在这个主题的发展中很重要。人们注意到，许多著作或著作段落的参考文献被省略，而这些著作或段落的结论显然是借来的，这损害了对知识历史演变的分析，而这种分析可能会为当代反思提供信息。例如，很少有几行没有引用断言的来源，如作者写道:“毫无疑问，这一断言引用了伯纳德·莫波伊(Bernard Maupoil)近80年前发表的一篇文章。莫波伊是一位杰出的殖民地行政长官，死于驱逐出境。1943年，他在《非洲人社会杂志》(Le journal de la societous des africanistes)上发表了一篇长文，提出了这一观点。这篇文章的标题清楚地表明它与上面的引文(Maupoil 1943b, t. XIII: 1-94)的相关性:“关于在达荷美境内的<s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1> <s:1>与伊斯兰的结合)”。这篇文章没有出现在本作品的参考书目中，这是一个不幸的遗漏。人们也注意到一些近似或令人惊讶的错误，例如在描述奥古马甘(ogumagan)时出现的错误。奥古马甘是法家(法中的“牧师”)在法的实践中使用的念珠。作者写道(第89页):“Le bokonon compose son signe grance au jet de seize noix de palme rassunis en chapelet”。正如作者所指出的那样，我自己不知道有16粒棕榈仁串在一起的念珠，虽然我在mussame de l'Homme的非洲部工作时，以及在贝宁从事各种项目时，曾有机会检查过其中的一些念珠无论是用植物还是矿物制成，法念珠都包含四种坚果，不多也不少。自20世纪30年代以来，有几位作者对法进行了扎实的研究，但没有人提到十六粒念珠(Trautmann 1939;Maupoil 1943;Hounwanou 1984)。坚果被劈开，形成八个半坚果，用绳子、链条或绳子连接在一起，两端各有一颗珍珠或一颗珍珠(阳性/阴性和左/右)，以指示数字的阅读方向。在咨询过程中，法师抛出念珠，坚果的两半分别表示一个位置，打开或关闭(I或II)，确定一个数字，帮助他唤起与法指定的风水屋有关的故事或神话，他在记忆中搜索。因此有256种基本可能性(dou)，与Fa相连。最后，回到作品的总体目的，其标题的模糊性在于作者似乎在意图的对象(即“阿波美的宫廷艺术”)与提议的解释(即“对象的意义”)之间建立的关系。如果“宫廷艺术”的概念进行分析的含义可以归因于这些产品和概念,还原和含糊不清的“对象”——希望这种艺术地位的分析,将基于知识积累的社会生产,并可能意味着这些工件的分析,我们现在的艺术属性状态,已经能够获得随着时间的推移,从阿波美点火的时代到我们现在的时代，考虑到这个王国后裔不断变化的历史理解，以及局外人的观点。甚至引用《蒙娜丽莎的钉子》(“这就是为什么学徒期很长”;Bazin 2008)，它似乎提出了一个新的方向，一个新的意义，或者一个新的阅读，并没有对所采取的路径给出太多的启示——恰恰相反。本书的结尾处对法国将多兹收藏的藏品归还贝宁共和国的政策表示欢迎，这给人的印象是，遗憾的是，书名的第二部分可能迎合了当时的情绪。这并没有真正参与对每个社会在其自我表现中所表达的意义的相对性和持久性的分析，关于它的过去，它的历史，以及它们与现在的共鸣方式。该地区的专家们期待已久，他们希望看到一个广阔的历史全景，并结合有能力的美学分析，但《阿波美艺术》和《物体之感》并没有真正满足这一期望。尽管如此，它仍然是一本聪明的汇编。总之，这本必须以论文为基础的书，具有为满足大学标准而写的作品所固有的品质和缺陷。在未来的工作中，我们期待着一种更加独立，当然也更加雄心勃勃的艺术方法。美学研究的路径，既包括生产人工制品的社会内部的研究，也包括来自外部的研究，包括遗产登记的研究，还有待采取。这条道路仍然是开放的。
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