Although the problems inherent in the term “African art” and how our perception of it has been affected by them, are wellknown, there is little consensus on how to resolve these and even less appreciation of the actual consequences they have for contemporary African artists. This is mainly due to misunderstandings and their perpetuation, misdirection and therefore as well perhaps to misdiagnosis.
Being essentially non-functional, its purpose exhausted by the aesthetic contemplation of it, art, it continues to be argued, cannot include traditional African art because this art is primarily functional. It is not surprising therefore that philosophers, concerned about the boundaries of the concept of art and fearing relativism, have interpreted the challenge presented by African art (and other so-called primitive art) to the category of art, to be conceptual. The point is that in spite of their functional origins these artefacts have, over time, come to be seen as a form of art and to be categorised as such, albeit uncomfortably, so presenting philosophers with what appears to be a case of conceptual confusion. Given the practical situation of its partial inclusion, many of the proposed solutions to the problem as perceived have therefore consisted of attempts to adjust the category of art to allow for the inclusion of African art. Enlarged definitions of art formulated for this purpose have however, tended to be paradigmatic and instead of enabling African art to be properly accommodated within art’s logical borders, have had the unfortunate and probably unforeseen effect of increasing marginalisation.1) Add to this the fact that one result of this conceptual adjustment has been the overlooking of the very features that make this the kind of art that it is, it is not surprising that the issue has now become political and the intrinsic value of this art remains hidden to most foreigners while contemporary artists have to try to reconcile the particularity of their Africanness with the demands of universalism.
It is true that African art is fundamentally different from the art of the West (and elsewhere) because its making is guided by specific socio-cultural and often practical functions. But what is seldom realised is that because the particular kind of socio-ethical humanism of its guiding framework excludes individualism, no conceptual engineering will force African art into what will always be an alien concept. And nor should it. Ironically, another oversight which inevitably accompanies the prevailing perceptions of African art has been the acknowledgement that the origins of the very Western art which is taken as paradigmatic and which therefore excludes its African counterpart, also has roots in social and ethical ideas. In this case though, the different intellectual climate has allowed its particular development into art for art’s sake. But it must follow that since the origins of even the central examples of Western art are also mainly religious and functional and hence overwhelmingly culture specific, that the universality of the present concept which ostensibly overlooks its own regional beginnings, is itself debatable. Derived from Kant and the concomitant notion of rationality which legitimises art for art’s sake, and perpetuated by Romanticism and the socio-culural intellectual context which freed art from functional exigencies so making personal expression possible, and as part of a dominating culture, what is most likely just a local hegemony has, over time, become elevated to the status of the metacontextual.2)
When Anthony Appiah recently suggests not just asking why African art is art but also why it is African he invites us to shift attention away from the concept to a different aspect of the problem. But because of what Kimmelman (New York Times, 24 May 1998) has called the “eternal debate about African art” does not solve the problem but means facing a different kind of risk:
… how much (he asks) do we need to know about these objects to appreciate them? This is the eternal debate about African art. Do we recolonise the art by aestheticising it in Western terms? Or do we demean it - segregate it from other art - by stressing its anthropological side?
It is worth pursuing Appiah’s question even though the challenge now is how avoiding one horn of the dilemma will not ensure impalement on the other. The answer I think, lies in identifying the source of the dilemma. According to Nkrumah (Quaison-Sacke 1975: 75) this is that “… for too long in our history, Africa has spoken through the voice of others”. The problem when so specified can be seen to be that previous attempts to show what is African about African art and the thought manifested by it, being either descriptive accounts by foreigners who studied Africa as an object of curiosity, or reactions to these efforts, have indeed anthropologised and so demeaned it. More recently though, African philosophers have, in trying to reconstruct African thought by evaluatively analysing its intellectual foundations, shown how there can be a different and more worthwhile way to identify what is authentically African about African thought and therefore African art. My aim here is to assess their efforts and their findings within the context of the dilemma of African art with special reference to the contemporary situation.
Two prominent but misleading views about Africa have motivated these philosophers. Deriving from a search for what, it is claimed, does not really exist, these - also called inventions - have been blamed for the misconceptions about Africa, its traditions,culture, thought and art and for many of its problems. Proposed solutions to them having been inevitably of the wrong kind, have, it is argued, in turn contributed to - if not directly caused - poverty, famine, disease and corruption all of which have led to the present prevailing malaise of Afro-pessimism. One of these inventions, it is argued, depends on the “voice of others”; the other, ironically, comes from Africans themselves.
In discussing the first of these, Mudimbe (1988) has argued that the Africa of Westerners is a construct of foreigners who, coming with their own categories and conceptual schemes, interpreted Africa as the dark and mysterious continent inhabited by people whose lives were said to be “infiltrated” by paganism, mysticism and fetishism as well as by witchcraft. It is little wonder therefore that although artefacts of some aesthetic value were found there, because these were used for the various mystical and other ceremonies making up part of the ritualised life of these people, they were originally accepted only for their curiosity value and for the information they could provide about the strange practices of the equally strange inhabitants who were observed to throw bones, dance themselves into a trance, worship their ancestors as well as a variety of obscure deities, and who believed in spells, evil spirits, sacrifices and magic. Although no recognisable art practices, individual artists or art institutions could be found in Africa, these objects, thanks mainly to Picasso and his contemporaries who marvelled at their force and powerful aesthetic form when they first saw them displayed in Spain and then incorporated features of them into their own work, did eventually find their way, via archaeological and cultural museums, into the art galleries of Europe and America. Here they have been classified accordingly and although they are sought after by collectors, are still usually appreciated more for their decorative value than their original merit. Not surprisingly, fed by over-romanticised views of the Dark continent and later by a Hollywood inspired safari-type scenario, removed from their authentic habitat and contextualised and reconceptualised according to foreign norms, they have now become the source of an apparent conceptual confusion.
But the problem is more complex and even more pernicious than it first appears because this version of Africa has led to what Appiah (1993) identifies as a different invention of Africa, its thought and its art.
Among the legacies of colonialism there has been a crisis of identity in Africa - both at the personal level of the individual and at the wider continental one. First of all, the imposition of Western religious, political, social and cultural traditions which were forced onto the local population, relocated and in many cases, replaced the local ones so disrupting the conceptual schemes of the indigenous people. Secondly, the dominance of the colonial mentality, which Wiredu (1992: 62) says, continues to “make a formerly colonised person over-value foreign things coming from his erstwhile colonial master”, persists to this day in some places. As a result there has been a shift towards adopting Western norms - in many cases at the expense of the local ones. But even though the colonialists did bring superior science and technology, sophisticated forms of government as well as literacy, by imposing these onto the locals rather than by using a process of education, they did not entirely remove indigenous practices and the two continue to exist side by side in an uneasy alliance. The result has been a curious mix of Western and African ideas which to the outsider is responsible for what is perceived to be the often frustrating inability of Africans to become completely “civilised”. It is also the root of many of it problems. Not surprisingly there has been a reaction by Africans to this distortion of their African identity which has led to a struggle for authenticity and to the reassertion of cultural identity.
Mainly a movement of African intellectuals, many of whom had experienced post-world war Europe and who had lived and studied in France, Germany and England, the struggle to regain a genuine Africanness eventually became associated if not synonymous with race. Rejecting the previous identification by Europeans who could find no specific common or binding features to give unity to Africa and its peoples and who therefore conveniently came to see Africa merely as a landmass and hence as a geographical entity, this identity now rooted itself in a common descent - which had previously been ignored - by people united in their desire to reclaim what they saw as their true heritage. And so Negritude and Pan Africanism were born. Encouraged by the calls of Africanists like Leopold Senghor who lobbied for “a Negro style of sculpture, a Negro style of painting and even a Negro style of philosophy” (El Hadji 1995: 84), and the consequent search - especially in America by African Americans who nostalgically yearned for what they took to be their true homeland - for a black aesthetic, artists in Africa were pressurised into reasserting the Africanness of Africa. This was taken to imply the resuscitation of the traditional forms as found in the masks, shields, vessels, headdresses and other appurtenances of tribal life. But driven mainly by anger and the need to reject foreign interpretations and because colonial intervention had disrupted allegiance to and belief in the underlying metaphysical, social and cultural framework within which the originals were made, most of these modern works, having lost this guiding force, have become at best derived and, at worst, obviously inauthentic and lifeless.
Appiah claims that this version of Africa and hence of Africanness, arguably still harboured by those who are seeking for their roots in a continent from which their forefathers were driven by slavery, has been just as much a construction as that of the colonialists. He argues that the basic premise of a homeogenic Africa is mistaken because, on the contrary, he says, it is a well known fact that Africa is divided and disunited. It is indeed true that Africa is composed over over three thousand ethnic groups in over fifty five nation states. And the fact that these nation states are not natural groupings of people with like interests and heritage, but were artificial creations of the colonial powers further fueled the urge to find a cultural unifying force.3) Like its colonial predecessor, this Africa has therefore tended to ignore the cultural plurality of the people and the - quite marked - differences in the art of the various regions. The results have been that instead of turning their attention to the real problems of diversity, pluralism and multiculturalism and in this way redressing the devastating consequences of colonialism which still plague the continent (which is now even further divided by political nation building) and the resultant many costly and continuing wars, Africans, encouraged by mainly alienated and disenchanted African Americans in search of a cultural homeland, have been pursuing what is arguably nothing more than the red herring of essentialism. And as a result of the search for a common heritage, this African essence became identified with the one obvious commonality, namely, a black skin.
The consequences of these inventions have led to a reassessment of Africa mainly by African philosophers through a systematic investigation into African thought and rationality but with the aim of revitalisation rather than revival.4) And as these ideas have gradually begun to infiltrate all thought, so leading to the rejection of previous interpretations of the African identity, there has also been the beginnings of a similar reconstruction of African art both with respect to its Africanness and its status as art. The depth and strength of its African roots are evident in the fact that in spite of the influence of Western ideas and the contact with Western art and artists, because this art is an authentic attempt to be truly African, in being African it cannot also be art for art’s sake.
If Africanness is neither identification with a landmass nor with a black skin, then it makes sense to ask what it is and what it is about it that makes it uniquely African. Ki-Zerbo (1995: 61) in approaching this question asks what Africa is if not the African people because, as he says, “What is a country if not above all, the humans who live in it and are part of it?”. If he is right then reconstructing African and African thought would mean analysing how the people of Africa live and the thought systems shaping that lived experience. But if the old problems are to be avoided the aim of such an endeavour must not be essentialism and should rather be to for look some binding practices or beliefs that can distinguish them from the rest of humanity. There is a way to do this because inherent in Ki-Zerbo’s claim is the further one that what it means to be African implies that being African is intimately connected with what it means to be an African person. And since social and other institutions are constructed around and for human beings, they in turn will embody a perspective of human nature and personhood, it therefore also makes sense to turn to these institutions as they function within Africa - broadly construed - to examine the belief systems on which they are built and the world view or views they encompass. This is precisely what many African philosophers are now doing. This phenomenon, however, not being unique to Africa means that the practice should be (and generally is) common to any attempt at understanding a culture. Ironically, though, while accepted as legitimate in the civilised world the same exercise in Africa is suspected of being nothing more than anthropologising. Such a perception however, indicates a lack of understanding of what is involved in this kind of process of analysis, re-evaluation and revitalisation.
Even if empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports culture specific philosophy in Africa, and one of the problems of the past has been the result of overlooking the diversity of Africa and so to lapse into generalisations, it does not follow that there are no detectable common trends at all in African communities. Sometimes it is just that the overwhelmingness of the numbers of different groups and peoples has buried any repetitive manifestations under the impact of this diversity.
There is general agreement that what has been found in this process of analytic re-evaluation is that traditional African life, originally organised around clans, is still structured around the community and even though colonialism (and in South Africa the harsh separatist policies of the apartheid system) has disrupted families and communities while the lure of the cities, personal wealth and the sophistication of Western life-styles has attracted large numbers away from traditional communities, communalism remains the source of accepted values. But, of course, communalism is not unique to Africa. What makes this communalism, the underlying thought and, by implication, the art specifically African Gyekye (1997) argues, is the particular form of its socio-ethical humanism where actions are motivated by concern for others rather than the recognition of individual rights.5) If this is the case then it follows that understanding the nature, the place and the role of art and artists in this communalism requires knowledge of the system of beliefs on which it is based. This includes socially and culturally embedded personhood, the sociology of knowledge, communitarian ethics, consensual and participatory forms of democracy, a holistic and idealist metaphysics (which embraces both primary and secondary causes) and an inclusive ontology. What emerges from this is indeed a uniquely African conception of what it is to be a person and an artist - and no conception of l’art pour l’art.
Underpinning all African thought, it is claimed, is a closed metaphysical system in which everything hangs together in a hierarchy from the Supreme Being who although variously conceived within different societies, is usually described as the source of life, and who is followed by lesser deities, the ancestors, humans, animals, plants and matter in that order, all forming a universe containing interacting forces. Being conceived as a closed vertical system there is no radical distinction between the natural and the supernatural and no complete break between mortal and immortal life. Since the basis for differentiation lies in the place and the order of things within the hierarchy rather than in different forms of being, the dead as well as the living (and the Supreme being and other spirits) must therefore all share in the same life force which in turn cannot be replenished or depleted from without. And since these animating life forces are merely passed on in an interactive process, it follows that the dead are not seen as inanimate but, having moved on and up in the hierarchy, just occupy a different and superior position from that of the living hence, unlike, as in Western customs where the dead are accorded no such status - often interpreted as lack of respect by Africans - reverence for the dead is an important part of African life. And it follows that if all beings interact then the living dead can and do play a role in the lives of the actual living and may be called upon to intervene or for counsel, or may themselves choose to interact and communicate with the living. Since the deceased and the deities are part of ordinary life they can be appealed to for guidance and are consulted when required. Veneration, appeasement and communion with the ancestors which can have both practical and spiritual benefits - misconstrued and condemned as ancestor worship by Westerners - is therefore not unusual and may require sacrifices or special rituals because these and other spirits have the power to cause both harm and good. However, since such communication needs special gifts and practices those chosen for it are considered to be endowed with unique attributes (which in turn need to be developed) and, as a result, are highly regarded by the community.
Included in this holistic metaphysics is a dual notion of cause. Together with an acceptance of natural causes of events there is also a more important causal explanation for why a particular event should happen to a particular person at a particular time and hence an explanation especially for unusual circumstances or for what in Western thought systems is known as luck or co-incidence and which answers questions of Why me? Why this? Why now? So, for example, although the bite of the mosquito is known to cause malaria and both preventative and curative measures can be taken which succeed in many cases, an answer to questions neglected by Western medicine is why this particular child is bitten and why it does not respond but dies. Floods, drought, famine, and epidemics are all attributed to both types of cause and since they are deviant events, are at least partially explained as the displeasure of the ancestors, the spell of an evil spirit or witchcraft. Because such events are not the result of natural causation only and require non-natural as well as natural treatment, the relevant ancestor or spirit must be appeased or the spell lifted by the appropriate means. It is the specialised domain of Seers and Sangomas to identify these causes and their cures, perhaps by throwing bones and by appealing to the responsible spirits and/or ancestors. And, since the methods are learned through and passed on by the ancestors, only those who can communicate with them possess the relevant knowledge and skills. 6)
Thus a more complete explanation especially of unusual events is sought and provided, and technology finds its place as only part of a wider scope of cause and effect. This is why knowledge performs a practical, social function and why there has been little interest in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake or for investigating the theories underlying the technologies developed or adopted to cope with everyday contingencies.
Given the overall picture, the notion of personhood must be relational rather then individual although the degree of this cultural and communal embeddeness is a matter of dispute - Wiredu arguing that is it complete, Gyekye more moderately that it is partial. Either way the implication is that the person therefore is not seen as separate or separable from the community. As expressed according to the Southern African notion of Ubuntu which can permeate all life, for example, a person is a person because of other persons.7) Thus collective action, mutual aid, interdependence and consensus politics are all necessary conditions for a person’s welfare and for the collective good. And, as Gyekye says, since the welfare of each is dependent on the welfare of all and individual worth is measured and determined through a person’s contribution to the general welfare, the highest good is to be found in relationships with others and in working for the common good. The role of the individual within this system is to work for the common welfare and through his or her own deeds promote the general good. This communitarian ethic therefore subverts the importance of rights by the importance of duty to others and the recognition of individual rights means the recognition of obligations to others. Although Gyekye (1987: 156) acknowledges that communitarianism is
… the recognition of the limited character of the possibilities of the individual, which limited possibilities whittle away the individual’s self-sufficiency.
he denies that it stifles the individual. On the contrary, the implied co-operation not only promotes the individual good but allows for individuality provided this aims at the common good, for, as he says (1987: 157),
… the communal order is worthwhile. Its intricate web of social relationships tends to ensure the individual’s social worth, thus making it almost impossible for an individual to feel socially insignificant … the individual feels socially worthy and important because his or her role and activity in the community are appreciated. The system affords the individual the opportunity to make a meaningful life through his or her contribution to the general welfare. It is thus part of the doctrine of communalism that the individual can find the highest good - materially, morally and spiritually (psychologically) - in relationships with others and in working for the common good.
The good of the community therefore, rather than denying individual endeavour, requries the “moral worth, capacities, talents, and the general conditions of self-development of the individual human being” (Gyekye 1997: 288) but within and as part of the activities of the community and not just as the pursuit of lone goals. Thus the African socio-humanism of Ubuntu already mentioned finds it’s more Northern African counterpart in the anti-Cartesian Akan concept that “I am because you are and since you are therefore I am” (Gyekye: 1997: 37).
Within this system, aesthetic practices as part of a holistic and relational worldview, have followed different forms from their Western parallels where persons are conceived primarily as the individual bearers of rights and therefore where personal creativity, honour and expression have become hallmarks of excellence and endeavour. So while Western aesthetic activities, finding their apotheosis in Kant and the Romantic tradition and the accompanying notion of individuality have became and are valued for a function wholly internal to them and exhausted by it, within African communalism, aesthetic activities and their products serve the practical and spiritual needs of the community as these have developed as part of an extended social system which includes the holistically conceived order of things, the individual as person-in-community and the living dead. With survival often dependent on the harsh and unpredictable forces of nature and the supernatural who have to be venerated and appeased, there is no requirement or even possibility for isolated aesthetic contemplation for its own sake. Instead the celebrated but misunderstood artefacts collectively known as African art were made to serve the purpose of communicating with the living dead and the deities in special celebrations and rituals. Even apparently decorative objects like jewellery were functional since they were meant to proclaim the power of the chief or king.
The makers of these artefacts, in order to be well versed in the practices and the beliefs guiding them if their relevant purposes are to be successfully achieved, undergo long apprenticeships to study the various ceremonies, rituals and festivals and their underlying metaphysics, as well as to perfect their own techniques. Since the general purpose of these various rituals is to maintain harmony, defeat chaos and recreate order by making the supernatural accessible to human will, the relevant spirits must be perceptible to all those who partake in them. And so the entire community participates in the many and varied occasions on which it is necessary to call uopn these beings either for blessing or for absolution.
Hence the artefacts are ontologically different from Western art objects: not being just representations of the spirits but, given the holistic metaphysics, they are taken to be the actual embodiment of them and hence are conceived as animate. Animation, part of the process of creation, itself requires contact with the relevant spirit or being and revelation to the general populace and so in turn is highly ritualised and usually intensely emotive. Richards (Welshe-Asante 1993: 66) in describing the mask as “… the quintessential statement of the unity of spirit and matter” gives some insight to the radically different way in which Africans conceive of what is now called their art. Unlike its Western counterpart, she explains that
… the African mask is in essence not a representation. It is not lifeless matter. It is not a work of art to be admired on a wall … It is a force. It has being and as such can be/should be powerful. Its power lies in its ability to transform. Masks are used to transform young boys into men… Masks are used to assure the presence of the ancestors at ceremonial occasions and judicial procedures. They are used to heal, to frighten, to make fertile, to initiate, to bind in oath, to appease and to atone.
They are certainly not just to be admired for their aesthetic appeal.
Of its creation and creator, also very different from the creative process and the artist as conceived in the West, she says,
The mask is created by the artists and as such must be given life, since it is to have being and force … The artist puts part of his being into the mask. All African artists (creators) must sacrifice in order to create; for that which they create is animate, the artist is therefore giving birth.
Hence we can now understand why there are no equivalent terms in African languages for who in the West is called an artist or, that matter, for art as it has come to be conceived. In their place are appropriate terms for appropriate people and practices. In the Cameroun, for example, the closest to “artist” is “saar” where a saar is anyone who creates and, since doctors are seen as creating healing and teachers wisdom, they too are saars as are all members of society who “create” in this wider sense. It follows that not all saars are required to or can create and animate masks and other artefacts. But it is also interesting that the closest Xhosa word to art seems to be “skill” so clearly suggesting an alliance with Plato’s notion of techne and demonstrating that the origins of art in Africa and that in the West might therefore after all not have been that different Therefore it must have been their subsequent development, depending as it has on the relevant and differing socio-cultural factors rather than on universal logical conditions, which has diversified so leading to the different current practices and conceptions.
It is not surprising therefore that the exaggeration of the physical features of most traditional African aesthetic artefacts, which enthralled Picasso and which has so often been described as their grotesqueness, is not co-incidental or even attributable to mere aesthetic preference, but has a particular purpose. This is to ensure effective arousal of the emotions without which the spirit or spirits can not be invoked. Many and various ceremonies have been devised for all the occasions on which it is necessary for the population to have contact with the spirits and for which masks and other relevant artefacts are required. These include the harvest, rites of passage (which in turn are marked by various initiation ceremonies each with its own regalia), marriages, burials, and so on as well as special events like wars, floods, famine, floods and epidemics. As a result the originality of works of African art, unlike the conception of originality in Western art, does not imply the uniqueness of an object or its creator but rather its use in these actual ceremonies. And when artefacts become damaged or weathered and are no longer suitable for the purposes for which they were made they are discarded and replaced by new ones. It follows that musuems and galleries or their counterparts are unknown in traditional Africa since it would be inconceivable for an infrastructure to protect and preserve these artefacts in isolation from their use to be developed because their value lies in their effectiveness as prescribed by their specific function and their originality in their use in actual ceremonies which is not confined to individuals but extends to all members of the society who in turn use their combined creative energies co-operatively for the ongoing purpose of ensuring the common good. Even today curators find it diffcult in Africa to persuade local populations to view and appreciate artefacts in what is to them a foreign and meaningless environment. Strange as these conceptions are to foreigners who have tried to make sense of them in their own terms, so the Western desire to preserve art is contrary to the continuous African need to ensure the general welfare. In comparing the to him odd desire to preserve works of art in isolation rather than to see them as part of the practice of ensuring the ongoing common good, Motlhabane Mashiangwako, a contemporary South African artist has commented: “You want to create a forever, but we want to forever create” (in conversation: Pretoria 1998).
Finding no musuems or their equivalent and no conception of preservation in isolation, Westerners were also unable to recognise individual artists in Africa. Instead what they saw were groups of artesans working together in collaboration. What they failed to realise, however, was that the works they made could not be the products of mere personal expression since they were meant for communal use which included use by the natural as well as the supernatural. In keeping with the communal system’s inhospitability to lone endeavours and individuality, and being counter to these communal interests, in some cases where such an individual contribution was seen not to be aimed at the general good but rather at selfish enrichment or fulfilment, it was even considered an abheration and punishable. Secondly since it served particular ritual purposes, each work had to conform to certain forms and of course since each one was the embodiment of a particular supernatural being, these were strictly prescribed. But even though artists did not work alone and a work was usually the product of several artisans all working together, given the importance of an individual’s contribution to and within the community, the assumption that therefore there could be no recognisable individual artists has been challenged. Biebuyck and Fagg among others have used empirical evidence to point this out, arguing that the lack of appreciation of individual artists was due rather to the inability of the foreigners to recognise indivdual styles than the fact that there were none for, if we know what to look for we shall be able to identify personal differences. Although Fagg (African sculpture quoted from flyer for the Master Hand exhibition Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1998) refutes what he sees as only colonial (mis)perceptions when he says, “… every artist has his own personal style, which we can identify, and is as much of an artistic individualist as his Western counterpart” and each artist could develop his or her own style, the equivalent of the creative genuis starving alone in a garret was indeed unkown because even these recognisably individual endeavours were not just for personal expression but ultimately aimed at the communal good. And although the notion of an equivalent to the lone creator working in isolation was out of the question, the makers of these creations (as well as the artefacts themselves which were used in the many rituals and ceremonies) were highly regarded since, unlike other members of the society, they had the knowledge and the skill to make and animate the objects to invoke deities and the spirits of the ancestors and hence to fulfil a communal role. Then, since each object served particular ritualistic purposes and embodied a particular supernatural being, a work had to meet aesthetic as well as formal criteria if the relevant being was to be properly honoured . So it does not follow that the look of the thing was unimportant since it would have been considered to be insubordination (and probably the work itself would have been ineffectual) to make technically inferior or aesthetically poor pieces and the works were therefore indeed appreciated for their aesthetic appeal although not just for its own sake but because of this appeal’s contribution to their overall effectiveness and function.
The legacy of misconceptions has placed a heavy burden on contemporary African artists who have their roots in the traditions but who have also been open to what Gyekye (1997: 219ff) calls cultural borrowing (as opposed to cultural imposition). They are expected on one hand to combine the conflicting demands of being African and at the same time, as artists, to work within Western norms and conceptions of what this means, on the other. Hence they are caught within the wider dilemma of the relativism of their own particularity and the perceived requirements of universalism.
Although many Africans have become Westernised through cultural contact and through contact with other societies, just as it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the influence of their own inherited belief systems, so it would be wrong to underestimate the role of Westernisation in the creation of much contemporary African art. Some artists in Africa, removed from their original traditions, indifferent to the old metaphysical visions and pressurised to revive a pan-African perception of African art, not surprisingly often produce work lacking the force of the originals they are expected to emulate. In many cases these artists, under Western influences and a changing society and encouraged to be “African” merely use African forms for their own expressive purposes. But these works although recognisably African remain caught in the unfortunate space between opposing conceptions.
But even though many of these works are indeed of merit, it is the work of other artists, who, resisting the call to traditionalise, have absorbed Western aesthetic ideas and yet who create within African communalism, and who are trying to reconcile the fact of their Africanness with what appear to be the conflicting demands of the artworld into which they are being synthesised, which is of special relevance, interest and value. The objects produced, even if superficially indistinguishable in type from those of their Western counterparts, although some may look like traditional wooden masks and other paraphenalia actually used on ceremonial occasions, still serve a socially functional and instrumental purpose. Mothlabane, for example, explains the images in his paintings which are framed in the usual way and hang, like most paintings, on gallery walls, by saying that they come to him in dreams and therefore from the ancestors and other spirits and that his role as an artist is to communicate the ideas of the ancestors through his works. But because he produces works in a genre recognisably artistic, and ostensibly falling within the concept of art, he is unproblematically categorised as an artist - even though he conceives of his role differently. However, if the viewer is properly to understand the work and to perceive it as African in the way that Africans perceive it, then he or she does need to be aware of the wider metaphysical framework informing it. Approaching African works, either traditional or contemporary, exclusively from within a non-African worldview belittles them because even those presented in what appears to be a personal and hence Western idiom are also part of the wider African communal world-view deriving their real value from their socio-ethical humanist purpose. The story of African art shows that there is little to be gained from trying to fit a foreign concept of art onto aesthetic activities and products alien to it and then trying conceptual engineering when none can be made. On the contrary the value of this art is in recognising and appreciating the works as the manifestation of the African aesthetic experience when that experience is articulated within the underlying belief systems. Although contextualisation is now the practice in understanding all art, African art, ironically through its tangled history of misunderstanding, has been singled out for its deviance or judged for what it was not meant to be precisely because proper understanding and contextualisation has been denied it. So rather than lamenting its shortcomings because its purpose is never exhausted by mere contemplation, African art can and should instead be assessed according to its function of serving the needs and concerns of the whole community - even when works look as if they are the creation of a single individual articulating what on the surface seems merely to be his or her personal idiom.
It does not follow though that even traditional African art cannot justifiably be appreciated and enjoyed as if it were art in the accepted sense even if this does mean viewing it for no purpose other than aesthetic contemplation. As Appiah (1995: 24-26) has argued, when invited, we can take these works as art for art’s sake because: … “what is important is not whether or not they are art or were art for their makers: what matters is that we are invited to treat them as art”. But as Mothlabane cautions us, we should also be aware that Western artists are not put in the same dilemma as he and his colleagues: Africans and African artists don’t view Western art as if it were meant for functional and instrumental purposes. In a parallel situation when seen by Africans as if it were African art and hence art for life’s sake, this art, being art for art’s sake, and hence both purposeless and individualistic, and serving no social humanist function, would at best be trivial.8) Why, he asks, can the trouble not be taken to extend the same courtesy to them?
Jennifer Wilkinson
Philosophy Department
University of South Africa
Notes
1. These include Kamber, R. 1993. A modest proposal for defining a work of art. British Journal of Aesthetics, vol.14:3.
2. See Gyekye 1997: 27-33 where he discusses how particular ideas have achieved the status of universals. The term “local hegemony” comes from Margolis, J. 1995. Historied thought, constructed world. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles.
3. The much publicised African Renaissance as envisioned by the South African Deputy president Thabo Mbeki which aims for the rebirth of Africa within a modern global economy, will need to find a balance between these differences and commonalities if it is to succeed.
4. These include Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Godwin Sogolo, Didier Kaphagawani and Anthony Appiah.
5. The new South African constitution, a rights based doctrine, is, interestingly, often interpreted according to communalist principles.
6. Lack of appreciation of this notion of dual causes has often been the at the base of many puzzling medical phenomena in Africa such as inexplicable deaths after spells having been cast on patients who until then had been making rapid recovery. Only recently In South Africa have so-called “traditional healers” have been accorded official status.
7. Ubuntu is a particular form of Southern African socio-ethical humanism permeating all aspects of life among many Southern and South African people.
8. The phrase “art for life’s sake” comes from the title of Jegede’s article in Welshe-Asante: 1993.
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