African Art Research Articles

Canons and counter canons in the battles about global art

The Cubists’ fascination with African and Oceanic art and its revolutionary influence on Western art in the early 1900s is an important stage in the develop­ ment of modern art. Meanwhile in Africa, in what is now Nigeria, there was a reciprocal interest in Western figurative art, which eventually led to the establish­ ment of academic art education in West Africa. This second story, however, is much less known and, when it is told, the adoption of Western influences has generally been seen as passive and even damaging. Now that these ‘othered’ voices are claiming attention and bringing their views to the art historical debate, Western and non-Western art narratives need to be retold from new perspectives. This article examines two moments, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the 20th century, when the West has enhanced its artistic production by leaning on influences from elsewhere while maintaining the right to grant or deny the status of art for cultural objects to itself. The article calls into question Western practices in categorising products of visual expression and highlights the contractual nature of art historical classifications and canons.

South African Nuclear Necropolitics in Helmut Starcke’s Study for “Vaalputs Madonna”

Art provides a meaningful instrument with which to understand, reflect, and communicate history, humanity, scientific progress, and societal threats. Nuclear art is a particular and critical art form that deals with the duality of the nuclear chain reaction which is either used for peaceful purposes such as nuclear medicine and food irradiation, or for weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear bombs. Despite South Africa’s long nuclear history and unprecedented voluntary nuclear weapons disarmament, nuclear art as a visual practice is underdeveloped in the country. This article considers German-born South African artist Helmut Starcke’s Study for “Vaalputs Madonna” (2007) as a visual expression of South African nuclear art, and the nuclear necropolitics related to the Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. Starcke’s use of Marian iconography and his juxtaposition of European and African art symbolises the violence of nuclear colonialism, while he also confirms the realities of the nuclear necropolitics of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.

“África Arte Negra” in Brazil

This essay examines África arte Negra, a major exhibition of over 750 African artworks that traveled to Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília from 1969 to 1970. Organized by Henri Senghor, independent Senegal’s first ambassador to Brazil, in collaboration with both Senegalese and Brazilian officials and curators, the exhibition became a site of debate about Brazil’s national identity and definitions of art, presenting an idea of Africa through the art of numerous ethnic communities on the continent. The exhibition articulated independent Senegal’s theory of Négritude, broadly defined as an anticolonial intellectual movement promoting African and diasporic culture and solidarities as well as global Black consciousness, which clashed with Brazil’s rhetoric of racial democracy. Yet the exhibition, I argue, mended these competing discourses for the sake of diplomacy, creating bridges grounded in African art and the history of exchange between West Africa and Brazil.

South Africa at the Tate: Searching for a National School and a National Identity

On 20 September 1948 the Exhibition of Contemporary South African Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture opened at the Tate Gallery in London. It was organised by the newly formed national arts body, the South African Association of Arts, generously sponsored by the newly elected apartheid government, and hailed to be the first representative exhibition of South African art ever to be held abroad. Beyond its size and position at the Tate, it might, in retrospect, easily be relegated to the status of just a provincial collection of mildly avant-garde work reflecting the European influence and tutelage that most of the artists received. However, a considered study will show that it was a watershed moment for the politics of national art and representation, and for getting South African artists onto an international stage. By considering its local context, the selection process and the local and international responses to this exhibition, this article will provide an assessment of the concerted efforts made by an underdeveloped, colonial art world to promote and export a ‘national’ South African school abroad. It will highlight the exhibition’s critical position in the early development of a local South African art world in four aspects: first, the Tate exhibition evidenced the South African art world’s debut on the international art stage; second, it signified a local shift from privileging European art to preferring South African art; third, it hinted at the advancement in the South African art world toward modernism from academic art; and fourth, but not least, it raised issues of a national art to a national consciousness. Ultimately, the exhibition engendered a prominent public discourse about national art, national identity and representativeness that reached a general audience beyond the art world.

Genre or Hypernym

The current buzz surrounding West African popular music in the moniker of Afrobeats has placed a global spotlight on West African artists and their music. Afrobeats was popularized among mainstream North American audiences in 2016 when world-renowned musician Drake featured Nigerian musician, Wizkid, on his song “One Dance.” The term has gone under scrutiny in various debates between critics and advocates. What exactly is Afrobeats? Is it a musical genre with distinct sonic signifiers or a socially generated term for a panoply of West African popular music genres? Is it a synonym for West African popular music? Afrobeats is an ambiguous term because it evades a definition. Perhaps, the conundrum stems from the fact that it shares the same name with a precedent (and different) musical style–Afrobeat without an ‘s’–often associated with the world-renowned Nigerian musician and activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. This article traces the trajectory of the term from its conception as a hypernym circulating within West African communities outside Africa to its construction as a genre in the mainstream global music industry. By analyzing the operative distinctions between Afrobeats as a hypernym and Afrobeats as a genre, I explore the amalgamation of diverse genres as Afrobeats and the ensuing genrefication of Afrobeats. I argue that Afrobeats has been conceptualized differently within various contexts in the Global North. Through a critical analysis of conventional and alternative modes of circulation and consumption of music, I expatiate on how and why the term was constructed as well as its significance. Finally, by discussing the various ways in which the distinct modes of global circulation intersect, I suggest that Afrobeats is a social and aesthetic category within a diasporic cultural framework on the one hand, and a marketing category operating within what Dave Laing (2009) calls a “genre-market” on the other.

“The Dam Wall Broke”: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Method Analysis of Writing on the First Decade of Democracy in the South African Art World

ABSTRACT The end of each decade of democracy has seen periods of reflection in the South African visual art world through numerous initiatives, especially exhibitions and book publications. In 2024, after 30 years of democracy, the field is poised for another such moment of introspection. This article considers the first decade of democracy from the perspective of writing in the art world. Through a Constructivist Grounded Theory Method extant text analysis, a reading is conducted across various prominent South African art publications reflecting on the first decade, and these texts are coded to discern the major categories, or themes, that emerge through them, thereby distilling the period’s main features and concerns for influential writers and thinkers in the field at the time as themes. These include, (1) emerging onto the international art scene after the boycott, (2) navigating international demands and local challenges, (3) government failures, (4) presuming equality under democracy and globalism, (5) race and the persistence of white dominance, (6) challenging Western- and Eurocentricism, (7) questioning visual arts education, (8) lacking engagement with art, (9) questions around moving on from resistance art, (10) negotiating and representing identity, and (11) the rise and critique of the gallery system. Not only are the major concerns and their textures succinctly revealed through the rigorous Grounded Theory Method coding process, but their crystallisation also deepens our understanding of how the art world has interacted with the periods of democracy, and which particular sets of preoccupations have informed its discourses.

Below the Surface: Swimming Pools as Sites of Memory in Post-Apartheid South African Art

The private swimming pool is an iconic part of the South African suburban landscape, sustained by dark legacies of migrant and domestic labour and ecologically unsustainable practices as much as by climate and lifestyle. It is also a powerful signifier of the shifting neuroses of its privileged, predominantly white, middle-class resident bathers. This article argues that, in representing the private swimming pool, contemporary South African artists interrogate issues “below the surface” of unresolved historical trauma and create a space for often reparative memory work. Works by Kirsten Beets, Lungiswa Gqunta, and Berni Searle are examined in painting, video, and installation; works examined have all been produced against the backdrop of Cape Town’s severe drought of 2015– 2018. Avoiding a habitualised instrumentalisation of water, the article thinks with water firstly as memory and secondly as a container for a traumatised South African consciousness, grappling critically with issues of acculturated whiteness and notions of privilege, leisure, and recreation in the time of climate crisis. This is done by interpreting works by the selected artists, bringing into focus how water itself, while “captured” in the swimming pool, is nonetheless acting through the works and this article to shape an imaginary of watery spaces alongside and through the sociopolitical. Watery spaces are also argued as existing even in the absence of water.

To Be Free! The Art of Gavin Jantjes

This article contemplates the life and work of the Oxford-based South African artist and activist Gavin Jantjes, born in 1948 when apartheid officially became the law of the land in South Africa with the National Party’s election to power. Because Jantjes’s understanding of his role as an artist took shape in Cape Town in the 1960s, when every aspect of his life was dominated by the racism of the apartheid state, he has questioned both the incongruities of his life and what his role as an artist has meant, establishing himself as an outspoken and imaginative critic of institutionalized racism and other forms of discrimination. Facing the dual obstacles of race and poverty, as well as the pejorative assumption of the Western European modernist canon that Africans lacked the ability to produce meaningful contemporary visual art, Jantjes engaged head on as an artist and activist with tensions between Western modernism and classical African art and the trope of “primitivism” in Eurocentric art historical discourses. This article foregrounds Jantjes’s multiple roles, both in and outside of the studio and gallery spaces, by examining his paintings, prints, and drawings, as well as material related to his curatorial interventions, writings, and formidable publishing efforts, to reveal pivotal moments in his personal and artistic journeys across five distinct yet overlapping phases of his artistic movement from 1970 to 2023.

Jazz Cosmopolitanism In and Around Malawi: Musical Praxis in the Politics of Belonging

In this article I explore the notion of jazz cosmopolitanism in Malawi in an effort to examine the complexities of navigating transnational multicultural spaces. I am specifically interested in how this plays out in southern Africa, where the music industries are affected by ongoing influences from the Global North sedimented on top of a history of multiple types of colonialism. I outline some foundational works on music and cosmopolitanism in Africa before discussing the music and career of Malawian jazz guitarist and producer, Erik Paliani. Paliani stands apart from many Malawian musicians based on his career highlights, but also his commitment to jazz as an international and African art form as well as a means of navigating the world. I focus on two compositions as performed by him in order to explore creativity and positionality as they relate to the intersection of jazz and African musics. I also interrogate my own positioning as a foreign white male and frequent participant in the Malawian music industry since 1991. In doing so, I unpack some complexities to cultural representation in cosmopolitan African spaces articulating with discourses on mobility and privilege. My aim is to understand how reconciling individual expression and collective belonging may be accomplished through the praxis of Afro-jazz in southern Africa. I suggest that jazz cosmopolitanism, rooted in socio-musical practices in southern Africa and beyond, adds a crucial layer of expressive devices and referential frameworks that illustrates important stories of human experience in this region.

Symbols of a new nation: Ghanaian artists’ expression of cultural identity after independence

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the way Ghanaian visual artists Atta Kwami, Kane Kwei, and Saka Acquaye, used the art to express and narrate the cultural identity during the one decade of independence of Ghana (1957). Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country which got independence from British colonialism. Besides, the nation wanted to promote the pan-Africanist dream of a new African people. But, the country faced a colonial and traditional dilemma. The research uses the archival method and visual discourse analysis as the main methodological instrument to examine the way artists used traditional symbols from African art, like Adinkra, to modern art by mixing plural personalities. The artworks they created were empowered themselves and allowed a collective story to be told of Ghanaian culture’s recovery, self-sufficiency, and the togetherness of the country. The study shows how these artists applied art as a significant catalyst in the process of nation-building and the creation of a new culture by getting rid of the misconceptions about the negative effects of colonialism on the cultural situation. Their art forms became semiotic kits for the beginning of cultural self-organization through the coherent state of Ghana.

Embodiments of conservation: conflictual agencies in and out of the museum

ABSTRACT This paper examines the ways in which conservation may shape, influence, or even manipulate the authenticity and materiality of cultural heritage, cultural identity, and value. In this regard, the application of the term “embodiment” encompasses the choice of conservation strategies and the values and goals attached to them. I argue that embodiments may carry and refer to historical, political, economic, and ethical contexts and controversies. Therefore, two case studies will be discussed: These are the conservation approach and program for the Shōsō-in, the eighth-century treasure house of the Tōdai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan, and the 2022 introduction of crypto-conservation by the Saar Historical Museum in Saarbrücken, Germany. The paper particularly highlights embodiments that perform the preservation of cultural heritage beyond Western practices. To this end, it also introduces the African artist initiatives Looty and Milele Museum, both of which expand the perspective towards conservation and restitution.

Camouflaging colonialism: a case study of a NeoColonial Museum

Museums are presented as institutions housing a society’s most outstanding artistic collective achievements. They are racialized organisations helping preserve white supremacist normativity in the racialized social system. We argue that museums are colonial projects that often camouflage colonialism. Museums’ hierarchal nature in prioritising Europe is blatantly apparent but rendered unseen unless you study its presence. Then, you discover differences through indifference. We used ethnographic observations and photography to explore how the Boston Museum of Fine Arts conceals colonialism. We find, for example, that the Art of Africa is demoted to two transitionary passageways. The pre-Columbian exhibit is relegated to the basement and camouflaged by other exhibitions. Additionally, Black bodies are subject to out-of-place sexualised portrayals. These findings reinforce our earlier argument that museums are white sanctuaries, safe spaces allowing whites to reaffirm their dominance in society.

Dress as the Agency of Power: Ozioma Onuzulike’s Ceramic Art

This study examines the ceramic works of a Nigerian artist, Ozioma Onuzulike, which vividly illustrate dress as an agency of power. His oeuvre features among other things the agbada, an extra-large clothing style prevalent in contemporary Nigeria, especially in elitist socio-political and cultural contexts. Over 25 years of Onuzulike’s ceramic art practice have consistently showcased modernist works that challenged conventional ceramic art and socio-political norms. His innovative use of clay and palm kernels to depict power dynamics in Nigeria has attracted some scholarly attention. This study employs compositional interpretation and contextual analysis to explore the visual, sociocultural, and political impact of Onuzulike’s hybrid ceramic art that depicts agbada. An iconological approach reveals the formal elements, historical, political, and social nuances embedded in the works. The concept of dress of power is used to unravel the multifaceted political significance of Onuzulike’s representations. Unpacking the visual vocabulary and metaphor of power in the works provides insights into the agbada as a status symbol in modern Nigeria. This artistic representation typifies a trend in contemporary African and diasporic art, where textile materials, forms, and ideas are central.

Everything Is Sampled: Digital and Print Mediations in African Arts and Letters by Akinwumi Adesokan (review)

Everything Is Sampled: Digital and Print Mediations in African Arts and Letters by Akinwumi Adesokan (review)

Integrating science on indigenous arts, culture, and law: A sine qua non for Africa’s true independence from colonialism and eurocentrism

Africa has been fighting against colonialism and Eurocentrism for a long time in an attempt to reverse the regime of oppression and socio-economic marginalization and exploitation, and take back control of its cultural identity and right to self-determination. This adventure requires the recognition and revitalisation of indigenous arts, culture, and law—all of which have been subjugated and ignored during colonial rule. Ironically, the situation has not improved much by the dominating presence of post-independent neo-colonial structures and perpetuated Eurocentric phenomenon that have been ingrained into the socio-cultural and economic fabrics of the African state. This research explores the critical need for integrating science on African indigenous arts, culture, and legal systems, as a way of globalizing as well as revitalizing these elements, towards the ultimate emancipation of the continent from the vestiges of colonialism and Eurocentricism. Relying on the postcolonial, and indigenous knowledge systems theoretical frameworks, the study engages the ethnographic, collaborative and interdisciplinary research approaches, subjecting data obtained to thematic analysis. Underscoring the profound interconnectedness of science, indigenous arts, and cultural heritage, the study argues that combining scientific methods with indigenous African epistemology provides a powerful framework for advancing Africa’s true independence from the protracted legacies of colonialism and Eurocentrism. The research concludes that a holistic integration of these elements therefore, is indispensable for fostering a decolonized and inclusive approach to knowledge production, self-determination and sustainable development, against the background of the rich insights and sustainable practices embedded within the African cultural traditions. Ultimately, the research recommends that embracing and integrating science on indigenous epistemologies can propel Africa towards an emancipated, truly independent, and culturally affirming future, transcending the enduring legacies of colonialism and Eurocentrism.

Coping within the interstices of the neoliberal sports market: Using de Certeau to analyse the migration of African mixed martial arts fighters in South Africa

This paper focuses on African migrant mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters enrolled in the Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC), a leading MMA organization established in 2009 in South Africa. It highlights their precarious work and living conditions, which are counterbalanced by the promise of real but rare career possibilities. Drawing from Michel de Certeau’s conceptual framework – notably his concepts of strategies, tactics and lieu propre (proper place) – we analyse what it is to struggle, cope and sometimes thrive, as a migrant fighter in South Africa. We rely on 61 semi-structured interviews with 35 professional EFC fighters from four Sub-Saharan countries who migrated to South Africa. Our results highlight the various tactics – which rely on social networks, their bodily stature, fighting skills and EFC media presence – that fighters mobilize to cope with the hardships of migratory status and unstable work conditions. We thus reveal the dialectic power relations that tie fighters to promoters and contribute to understanding migrants’ work conditions in the neoliberal sports market. Our research highlights the need to move away from migrant athletes’ caricatured representations as silent and passive victims unaware of the mechanisms of oppression to a more dynamic understanding of power relations that takes coping mechanisms and career trajectories into account.

Africa's Portrayal in African-American Writing

The depiction of Africa in African-American literature constitutes a nuanced and dynamic exploration, unveiling the intricate rapport between African-American writers and the African continent. Over centuries, Africa's portrayal has assumed myriad forms, serving as a symbolic homeland, a locus of struggle, and a wellspring of cultural inspiration. Imbued within these representations is a profound quest for identity and a yearning for belonging. Prestigious African-American authors, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Maya Angelou, adeptly interlace African culture, folklore, and history into the tapestry of their works. In so doing, they delve into themes of heritage, resilience, and cultural pride, presenting Africa not merely as a nostalgic ideal but as a vibrant tapestry of traditions intricately shaping the African-American experience. This representation transcends sentimentality, offering a palpable connection to ancestral roots and cultural heritage. Yet, the portrayal of Africa in African-American literature transcends idyllic visions of a distant homeland. Renowned authors such as Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie confront the harsh realities of colonization, slavery, and oppression in their narratives. In their hands, Africa becomes a complex terrain of struggle and resistance, where characters grapple with the enduring legacies of colonialism and the intricate dynamics of post-colonial identity. The representation of Africa in African-American literature reflects broader historical and political dynamics. During the Harlem Renaissance, there was a surge of interest in Pan-Africanism, as African-American writers actively sought connections with counterparts on the continent in the fight against racism and imperialism. This period witnessed an embrace of African art, literature, and culture, as writers sought to reclaim and celebrate their African heritage.

A Hack Into Nature: An Interview With James Webb

The interview focuses on South African artist James Webb’s ongoing series There’s No Place Called Home. In this intervention, Webb conceals an audio speaker in a local tree while broadcasting the calls of foreign birds into the public sphere. The artist has made this intervention in more than fifty locations worldwide, every time using a unique birdcall. The interview discusses different aspects of the series, such as site politics, power, listening, and human relations.

The Mundane and The Magical: An Interview with Usha Seejarim

The Mundane and the Magical, a sculpture by contemporary South African artist Usha Seejarim, was installed outside the Radisson Red Hotel in Rosebank, Johannesburg, in 2021. Five meters in height, the sculpture consists of two giant red wings constituted from the soleplates of domestic irons. In an interview on May 7, 2024, at her studio, Seejarim discussed the work’s development as well as the choice and treatment of its subject matter with Public Art Dialogue coeditor Brenda Schmahmann. Focusing on the domestic realm, a topic that had been the artist’s central focus since her exhibition Venus at Home (2012), The Mundane and the Magical was also particularly apt in the context of COVID-19, when the oppressiveness of home was often experienced with increased intensity.

African art as found object

In this article, Lisa Wainwright dates the direct incorporation of traditional African objects and three dimensional facsimiles into works of art by African American artists to the 1980s. Examining the work of Fred Wilson, David Hammons, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Nari Ward, Cauleen Smith and Theaster Gates, she discusses their respective approaches to liberating the African object from European Modernism’s historic hold.