Nov. 4th

This week we read three different articles. “Art, Identity, Boundaries: Postmodernism, and Contemporary African Art” by Olu Oguibe. “African Art and Authenticity: A text with a Shadow” by Sidney Kasfir, and Hendonism, masquerade, carnivalesque and power.

I was unable to attend class on Thursday for discussion but, interpreted and understood the articles the best I could. The article by Kasfir caught my attention the most and dealt with the idea of Authenticity. While reading the article many questions arose to me about what makes something authentic? Is it the time period in which it was created? Kasfir’s article discusses the before and after scenario of colonialism. This meaning art made before the mid nineteenth century before it was (tainted by western intervention) as the article put it. The quote that got me thinking in the Kasfir article was “It would be said to lack integrity, implying that somehow nontraditional artist have detached themselves from their cultures and that their work is therefore inauthentic.” From what this article has presented in leaves me wondering where do the boundaries lye of authentic or inauthentic and is it appropriate so say it depends on the context in which the piece is presented and taken from.

In the Oguibe article the sentence “In each case, the gaze is deflected onto utopia, onto the significance of the other.” This quote was referring to how work that is being done is being attributed to a tribe as a whole not to the individual artist that created it and by doing so we lose the narrative behind the piece of artwork and directed to their backgrounds. What I took from this article was that when we look at African art or any other art that is foreign to us we are often looking at the racial side of the work rather than the narrative and what the artist is trying to convey. We see the skin color or stereotypes that we have attached to that particular group of people and make up our own assumptions or narrative based on their background.

Over all I think the message that these articles were trying to convey was we need to be more aware of the individuality of the work were viewing and not tag it with stereotypes and assumptions when we don’t necessarily understand what’s being presented.

The Others....

This week we read to articles “Mami Wata Shrines” by Henry John Drewal, and “Imaging Otherness in Ivory” by Suzanne Blier. In each of these articles they described this idea of “the others.” This idea being a foreign culture to another and how they were being depicted to understand them better.

In Blier’s article three peoples were being depicted the Beni, Sapi, and Kongo. Each of them had their own depiction of the “others” in the article “the others” are the Portuguese. All though they all had a similar theme about the Portuguese their interpretations varied. The beni associated the Portuguese with Olokun who was the wealthy god of the sea and the undead. Works of art done by the Beni are linking these ideas. Many of the plaques and other artwork depict this other with oval eyes long hair and mudfish.

The Kongo and Sapi associated them with the undead as well. The Kongo associated there spiral forms and crown hats with the path of the underworld. These cultures also notice the cross that they were wearing which have long been around before they showed up. The cross being very similar to the cross roads was a reinforcement of their spiritual context. The x-shape to the Sapi was as Blier puts it “the conflation of spiritual and earthly realms, particularly the regeneration of the dead among the living.” As for the Benin they saw it as political and religious signifiers. Although their interpretations varied of the Portuguese they all had a similar theme and that was the relationship between life and death and controlling those worlds of power.

During class we began discussing this idea of how others cultures have influenced ours. Many example were thrown out and I think one of the best examples that was brought up was the Americanizing of food. When you go to a restaurant there are many choices and those choices are from different cultures. Have you ever been to three different restaurants, ordered the same meal and each one tasting and looking completely different? I think this idea can relate back to what the articles were discussing. We saw something but then we related it to our culture so that it would be better understood. In this case the food is being altered to fit American tastes.

Hatian art

This week in class we focused on Haitian art and the practice of Vodou.  Vodou is the religion of eighty percent of Haiti and is nothing like Voodoo that we think of in America. While learning about Vodou this week I noticed many similarities to other peoples of Africa.

The Vodou religion is a complicated but intriguing religion. The McCarthy Brown essay even calls the relations between the living and the vodou spirits a complex web. The essay focuses on a Woman name mama Lola and her practices of Vodou as a mambo (Vodou priest). Through these practices she summons the Vodou spirits for insight and wisdom.  In the videos we watched they also talked about this possession and it reminded me of some of the other peoples we have studied this year. The first few weeks of class when we discussed Ghanaian art and Nani visited and performed dances for us. He also discussed how through these dances the spirits would possess them. Another thing that came to mind was Herbert Cole’s essay, “ I am not myself” Cole discusses masquerades  and discusses the mask wearers being possessed by the spirits. This seems to be a recurring idea in African art and culture. In Hatian Vodou like many of the other groups and practices we have studied there have been many recurring themes.  The Idea of the cross roads has come up a few time just recently in our study of Hatian art but also when we discussed about the Yoruba using it during divinations. One final thing that came to mind while watching the video they were making sacrifices using chickens and goats. This brought to mind the Boli from the Bamana. The Boli also has this idea of scarification attached to it.

Although many of these groups are different have very different practices and beliefs they still share a lot of the same ideas.

Yoruba spiritual beliefs

Yoruba visual culture communicates the cosmology and spiritual beliefs in many ways.The Egungun masquerades are associated with the venerations of ancestors while altar bowls like the Olumeye Alter Bowl to honor and respect the gods and spiritual ideas.
Like most African cultures the Yoruba use shrines to interact with deities and spirits. sculptural forms in this case the Olumeye Alter Bowl are added to shrines as gifts. This particular bowl was created for the altar of an orisha. The bowl depicts a female figure supporting the bowl as a messenger to the orisha. many other important ideas could also be derived from this piece. the woman is carrying a child on her back along with another at her side this could possibly represent twin which happen to be important in Yoruba culture. also on top four female figures are dancing. One might also look at the symbol on the side of the bowl as the crossroads.
The Egungun Masquerades are performed to communicate with the spirit world rather than be perceived as a static sculptural entity. Many Yoruba associate this masquerade with the veneration of ancestors. Some egungun masquerades impersonate the spirit of the recently departed to ensure everything is in order before crossing to the spirit world. Engungen are identified with specific families and play a regulating role in that family. This serves as a link between the living and the dead.
Although both of these things portraying cosmological and spiritual beliefs they are representing two very different ideas one dealing with ancestors and their spirits while the other deals with the aspect of gods and offering them gifts.

Comparison's

Linguist Staff Finials are from the Akon people. They are constructed of wood and gold leaf wrapped around the carved figures. The finial tops are carved visual motifs that have meanings. One common example is two men sitting at table this visual evokes the proverb "food is for it's owner not for the man who is hungry." Many other staffs represent other attributes such as power or wisdom.

Diviner's staffs are made by the Bwa. These staffs are made of wood, iron, leather, wire, cowries, and organic material. These staffs are used usually carried by young men in field dances following the harvest. These figures are spirits that guarentee rich harvests. These staffs show men, birds, chameleon on them.

Each of these objects have representative figures on them although they have completely different meanings to them are both of high importance. The Linguist Staff being carried by important figures and representing specific attributes about the person wielding it. It shows importance of that person. While the Diviner's staff is a more spiritual staff intended for the use after harvest with depictions of important figures. Each staff has a powerful meaning behind it one being a spiritual object which is very influential to the people and the other being a object symbolizing power or a state of office and representing that persons qualities.

Masquerades

This week we talked about masks and masquerades. I found Herbert Cole's essay to be interesting as well as informative. In the essay it begin discussing about the myths of these masks in Africa and they all have one common theme to them. Women were the first to have the secrets of the masks and also the first dancers until men took over both entirely. From these myths conclusions were made that it was males fears of female power and reproductive capacities. the article goes on to explain that men avenged this power by forming secret associations and taking control of cults. at the begining of the week we learned about these associations in the bamana. The men had secret societies in which they made offerings to these clay Bolis using bload seman, fingernails, and other things to activate them. The article went on to talk about the spirits of the masks that are made and many of these masks have different functions. One particular mask is called "gods power" this mask is produced to promote crop growth. Other masks are made for entertainment reasons and to educate the young. Also the article discussed the spiritual embodiment during these dancers which we have been discussing over the last couple weeks.
The article also discussed how when masks are displayed in museums they are taken out of there culture and treated as independent sculptures and they loose the meaning behind them. I know in the past I would see pictures of them or a display and had know clue that there was a deeper meaning behind it.
One of the last things that I got from the article was the part of the article that discussed change in sculpting and that is it doesn't change very quickly they tend to stay with there original style that they learn first most change that occurs is towards the borders where the cultures start to mix styles. There was an example in the video we watched Thursday where one tribe had a giant masks depicting the serpent and one of the neighboring peoples wanted to create a larger masks so they added a meter to it. This article we looked at ties in with the three particular groups we looked at this week the Bamana, Bwa, and the Baule. The most common thing that all of these groups have in common in the sense of masks are they serve several functions. I believe we were talking about the Bamana and how they use there masks to educate the young and these dances they preform are for different stages in life ones for learning purposes and another is for initiation into adulthood. I never would have thought that these masks were so diverse and played so many different roles in each group of peoples even colors have different meanings among them. The more and more we study these cultures the more I find myself contrasting and comparing them to our culture.

Thoughts for the week

This week we took a look at an article called "Radiance of the king"  The article opens up discussing cross-cultural pollination and how Obama has become the new super hero of the world. As I look through these painting I can understand the idea of these painting being a narrative through the eyes of the artist.  On the first page we see Obama on a motorcycle and McCain on a horse, and on the motorcycle it reads change that we can believe in. Not only is it cleverly done but, it's expressing how the artists and others feel. You can get a feel for how much it meant that he was elected president. He's depicted with some of the most prominent figures in history, George Washington, Martin Luther King. He was even shown as super man. I do think that when he was first elected it was a culture shock to some in the United States, but over all I feel that it was seen as Republican and Democrat like any other election. I never thought to think what kind of an impact it would have made in other cultures, and these paintings are a good example of  it. So I do think these painting are an ambassadors of cross cultural pollination. It's pretty safe to say that us electing an African American president was a huge deal to them and they are showing it. In the article it was referred to as positive globalization.
On Thursday we took a look at some coffins from Ghana and those were really interesting. The coffins were shaped and formed to become an image of what they did. For example we saw one shaped into a cocoa bean this person was more than likely involved with that process. We also saw one that was shaped into a fish. More than likely that persons occupation was a fisherman. This idea of burying the dead has come out from Christianity which has made it's way through Ghana. This is another example of cross cultural pollination. Perhaps we will begin to see these types of caskets or ideas in western civilization with caskets looking like fish or some other kind of narrative not that we don't have forms of it already but it's just not a common practice. Our funerals tend to have a nice traditional casket. I also noticed a relation between there culture and ours. There mourning colors are black and red. although we don't necessarily wear these colors all the time to funerals we do associate black with funerals as well.