first word Participants met many of the artists, faculty, PhD student and instructor there. His  and activists who are driving the changes in dissertation, eoretical Foundations of the ’s art scene and heard them speak on KNUST Painting Programme: A Philosophical panels and round tables. ey also visited Inquiry and Its Contextual Relevance in Gha- exhibitions, artists’ studios, and the annual naian Culture, is closely read by faculty and Chale Wote street art festival in . Some students at KNUST to this day. seid’ou traces made an excursion to . the history of the undergraduate painting e authors, together with Susan Cooksey, program from its origins in the School of Arts curator of African art at the University of and Cras at Achimoto College in Accra in Florida’s Harn Museum of Art, had wit-  up to the rst decade of the twenty- rst Cutting Edge of the Contemporary: nessed these changes for the rst time in century. e art school transferred in  KNUST, Accra, and the Ghanaian August  while visiting Kumasi and from Achimoto College to Kumasi as an Contemporary Art Movement Accra to learn about the community of art- arm of the Teacher Training Department of ists, curators, and activists who are changing the Kumasi College of Technology, which in by Rebecca Martin Nagy and the dialogue and practice of contemporary turn became the Univer- Alissa Marie Jordan art. Cooksey and Nagy had spent time in sity of Science and Technology in . In Ghana on various trips over the years, but his exhaustively researched history, seid’ou Ghana’s capital, Accra, has seen an explo- on those occasions had studied histori- documents a series of curricular reforms sion in contemporary art in the last een cally based arts such as kente and adinkra through which the school sought to keep pace years. Many individuals, institutions, and cloth, brass casting, and wood carving. e with reforms in Great Britain and introduce foundations have contributed to this activity, impetus to return to Ghana in  came knowledge and command of Western modern with exhibitions, site-speci c installations from Christopher Richards, who was then art movements and practices to its students. and interventions, accessible programming, a graduate student at UF studying fashion His research demonstrates that the curric- critical inquiry and writing, digital networks, design in Ghana and now teaches at Brook- ulum ossi ed in the mid-s and, despite and social engagement. e art world beyond lyn College. He enticed us with accounts of continuing periodic eorts at reform, did not the country’s borders has become increas- the interesting exhibitions being mounted expose students to developments in interna- ingly aware of these exciting developments, in Accra by faculty, students, and alumni of tional contemporary art practice, theory, and which have roots in both Accra and Kumasi, the KNUST program. Our research in Accra criticism. home to the Kwame Nkrumah University and Kumasi in  and  was greatly of Science and Technology (KNUST). Many facilitated by a long-time colleague and acclaimed artists active in Ghana and inter- friend, Gilbert Amegatcher, retired from the nationally were educated at KNUST, among art faculty at KNUST, who made available them , , Atta Kwami, to us his amazing network of connections in Godfried Donkor, Dorothy Amenuke, and Accra and Kumasi. Ibrahim Mahama. e role of KNUST’s Since , a transformation of the curric- Department of Painting and Sculpture in ulum in the KNUST Department of Painting fueling revolutionary changes in Ghana’s con- and Sculpture has taken place. It is credited to the mold-breaking research, writing, and 1 Entrance to the exhibition Cornfields temporary art scene is of particular interest to in Accra at the Museum for Science and Nagy as director of an academic art museum, teaching of kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, whose institu- Technology, Accra, Ghana. August 2016. while artists’ networks in Accra—with con- tional critique was carried out while he was a Photo: Rebecca M. Nagy nections to Kumasi—relate to Jordan’s work in network theory and digital humanities. e vitality of the climate around Ghana- ian contemporary art was made clear to more than  individuals from , Europe, and the Americas who attended the triennial conference of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) in August , the rst to be held on the African continent.

R   M N is an art historian who retired July 1, 2018, as director of the University Florida’s Harn Museum of Art aer sixteen years. Her current research fo- cuses on the work of contemporary artists in Ghana. She is also an editor for African Arts. [email protected].edu A M J is an anthropologist and the Anthropology, Media, and Teach- ing Fellow with the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University. Her research interests focus on aesthetics, embodiment, and meta- physics in Ghana, Haiti, and the broader Af- rican Atlantic. [email protected]

VOL. 51, NO.3 AUTUMN 2018 african arts Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 | As seid’ou recounts, from  to  six 2 Banner installation by KNUST MFA assumption” that prioritizes commercial mar- students were enrolled in a newly estab- student Adjo Kisser for Cornfields in Accra, ketability: “[P]ortable (potentially saleable) mounted on the Museum for Science and lished MFA program, among them Caterina Technology, Accra, Ghana. August 2016. painting of sole authorship expressing the Niklaus, Emmanuel Vincent Essel (Papa Photo: Rebecca M. Nagy genius of the individual artist is the legiti- Essel), and seid’ou himself. is rst group mate artistic creation most worth teaching of MFA students was seen as potentially or pursuing” (seid’ou : ). Suppressed disruptive by most of the faculty for their or underemphasized in the curriculum were unconventional approaches to artmaking, goals for students to develop critical thinking such as performance art, text-based works, skills, interrogate existing models of art mak- political cartoons, and interventions in the ing, and imagine alternative models (seid’ou natural environment. ey found a sympa- : ). thetic and supportive faculty member in Atta Aer limited success with some new Kwami. However, seeing how the pioneering form of ironic over-identi cation with the approaches to teaching gure drawing, seid’ou MFA students were scrutinized for their sub- subject of critique” (seid’ou : ), he took a more radical approach with his design versive views, the next class of MFA students brought to bear his knowledge of philosophy, of the nal year drawing classes that he taught (–) reverted to the status quo and history, art history, literary and art criticism, from –. He assigned students to were praised by the faculty for adhering to international contemporary art practices, and explore the of Kumasi and while doing conventional standards of accepted sub- statistical analysis. He found that the faculty so to write down their thoughts and impres- jects—still life, landscape, the human gure, of art still employed academic methods of sions, thinking that this would help them to and narrative scenes—and accepted Western- instruction that emphasized mastery of linear articulate their ideas during class critiques. derived styles such as realism, pointillism, perspective, chiaroscuro, foreshortening, and He assigned readings such as Roland Barthe’s surrealism, and cubism (seid’ou : ). a narrow range of subjects and styles. ey Mythologies and encouraged students also When seid’ou returned to the college as a prioritized preparing students for jobs, teach- to read novels and poems to stimulate their PhD student in  and was then appointed ing them to paint decorative murals for public imaginations. All this was intended to create as a lecturer in , he began to reshape the buildings, serve as art teachers, or work as a discursive forum through which each stu- curriculum through his innovative pedago- designers in industry. In addition, seid’ou dent would develop a personal iconography, gy. Practicing what he has described as “a identi es what he calls a “hidden curriculum recognizing that everyday objects and events

 african arts AUTUMN 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 3 Downloaded from| http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 could be read as meaningful signs (seid’ou current faculty, advanced undergraduate and them as “archaeology of the city.” Commu- : –). Although seid’ou identies graduate students, recent alumni, and older nities selected for interventions are typically some problems with the outcomes of these artists—all intermingled and given compa- marginalized groups. For example, current experimental drawing classes, they formed rable weight in the installation. Every eort student Caleb Kwarteng Prah has worked the basis for some core concepts underpin- is made to expose students to developments with porter women, who come to Kumasi ning the curriculum of the KNUST program in art across the continent of Africa and from rural areas and nd work delivering in painting and sculpture today. internationally through assigned readings loads of goods in metal basins carried on Some of faculty in the program embraced and discussions; interactions with visiting their heads. ese women are homeless but the twenty reforms seid’ou recommended curators and prominent artists from Africa, form a close-knit community. Prah had to in the conclusion to his dissertation (seid’ou Europe, and the Americas; and residencies in earn their trust in order to produce a series : –). Joining him in the redesign Ghana and abroad for students and faculty. of stunning photographic prole portraits, and rejuvenation of the curriculum for third- Students are encouraged to explore all media which he presented in single, diptych, or and fourth-year students as well as those as well as performance art, writing, curation, triptych formats that referenced European pursuing graduate degrees were Kwaku Boafo and social engagement as aspects of their Renaissance religious imagery. Kissiedu and George Ampratwum. eir practice. Each third- and fourth-year student One of the questions faculty and students eorts have been strongly supported by the is required to collaborate with members of grapple with has to do with the impact of current dean of the Faculty of Art, Edwin the Kumasi community in developing a body such interventions on the lives of the local Bodjawah, as well as the sole female faculty of work, identifying a space for installation or people. As conceptual artist and KNUST member in the Department of Painting and performance, and mounting an exhibition. MFA student Kwasi Ohene-Aye asked during Sculpture, sculptor Dorothy Amenuke. Responding to the fact that there are no his remarks for an ACASA Triennial panel, One dening characteristic of the KNUST art museums or galleries in the city and only to what extent are their needs and interests program is that the faculty and advanced limited space on campus for art installations, taken into account? By extension, we ques- students form a collective, a nonhierarchical students have successfully commandeered tion if their lives are impacted in any positive community of artists who study, produce sites ranging from commercial enterprises, ways aer their interaction with KNUST art in a wide range of forms and media, to abandoned transit hubs and rail lines, to artists is past. ese issues are unresolved participate in group critiques, and work in streets, parks, and sanitation facilities. eir at KNUST, not surprisingly, just as interna- curatorial teams to organize exhibitions. projects are sometimes described as “guerrilla tionally many artists ask—without agreeing Oen these exhibitions include works by exhibitions” and the process of developing on an answer—whether art can and should

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 african arts AUTUMN 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 3 Downloaded from| http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 3 Map of the digital footprint of networks of lack of awareness in Accra of the work being Faculty consult with them while remaining persons, artworks, exhibitions, and events in the done in Kumasi, limited exposure of students in the background, allowing the students to contemporary art sphere in Kumasi and Accra between August 2002 and August 2017 (using a in Kumasi to developments in Accra, and the learn by rening their skills in this chal- force-directed algorithm). Only those nodes with underrecognition of Ghanaian artists in the lenging environment. Students produce the highest ranked degree (measure of ingoing and international arena—blaxTARLINES decided interpretive text, which is provided in Braille outgoing connections) are labeled. For perspec- to mount the program’s annual year-end exhi- and local languages as well as English; pre- tive, note the distance between the main network bitions in Accra. Since  these shows have pare printed materials; and develop extensive in Ghana and the 1:54 cluster in . Map developed by Alissa Jordan, 2017 been staged at the Museum of Science and programming to accompany each exhibition, Technology, a rambling three-story structure thereby engaging with diverse local audiences with an abundance of space and interesting as well as international visitors to the city. e architectural features. In  e Gown Must staging of these massive exhibitions is made Go to Town included the work of y-seven possible by collaborations between blaxTAR- students, alumni, and faculty of KNUST and LINES, the Ghana Museums and Monuments was curated by a team of graduate students Board, the Museum of Science and Tech- change individuals, communities, or society led by Robin Riskin. In  the exhibition nology, and for the most recent project, the as a whole. Cornelds in Accra, curated by students led Department of eater Arts, University of To facilitate collaborative projects with by PhD candidate Bernard Akoi-Jackson, was Ghana, Legon, the Foundation for Contem- groups of artist-curators, interventions in even more ambitious and included works by porary Art, and e Studio, Accra. unconventional spaces, and exhibitions that eighty artists (Figs. – ). e  year-end e collaborations between blaxTARLINES deeply engage with local communities, in  exhibition, Orderly Disorderly, featured works and government institutions have been KNUST art faculty launched blaxTARLINES, by more than ninety artists and was again fruitful, but cannot disguise the fact that gov- an art incubator that they describe as “an curated by a team led by Bernard Akoi-Jack- ernment support for the arts is still nascent. experimental project space for contemporary son. Works in each of these shows encom- President John Dramani Mahama began his art” (seid’ou : ). is is a virtual or passed a wide range of media, materials, and term with high hopes for creative arts in Gha- intellectual space rather than a physical one. formats that included paintings on canvas, na’s future. In , he craed a governmental In their collaborative practice, faculty and murals, political cartoons, photography, ber priority of “developing a competitive creative students critique the global capitalist sys- arts, video, sound pieces, performance art, arts industry” and reorganized the Ministry tem; question the dominant role of markets, assemblage, and sprawling installations incor- of Tourism into the Ministry of Tourism, collectors, and institutions in shaping the porating a wide range of materials. e exhi- Culture, and Creative Arts. In spite of these careers of artists; and nd alternatives to these bitions also incorporated diverse, multisite overtures, the Ministry has failed to make sig- entrenched models that prevail in Europe and projects that extended into the city and into nicant headway in establishing ties with the the United States. virtual spaces. Members of each curatorial growing creative arts industry. Acknowledg- In order to address several concerns—a team have completed a course on curating. ing their own absence in the creative elds,

VOL. 51, NO.3 AUTUMN 2018 african arts  Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 | the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Cre- 5 Coated in clay, performance artist Founded in  by Australian artist Virginia ative Arts has cited “unreliable data,” a “lack Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT) Ryan and Ghanaian anthropologist and examines a suspended cow jaw in his of cohesion in the creative arts domains,” collaborative performance and instal- conservator Joe Nkrumah, the FCA became and “noncooperative local stakeholders” lation piece Bond:H20, with artist John a member-based arts laboratory for “out-of- (Republic of Ghana : –). To date Herman at James Fort Prison, Chale the-box” contemporary artists to connect the administration has made little forward Wote: Wata Mata, Accra, Ghana. August with one another across Accra (Woets : movement in establishing a permanent arts 2017. ). Under Ryan’s directorship, member Photo: Alissa Jordan infrastructure in Ghana. As a result, Ghana artists experimented with new media and still has no publicly funded art museum. subject matter, craing art from discarded Artists and art activists in Accra thus face the materials, ambient sound and abstract forms. challenge of sustaining a burgeoning interest Deliberately ambivalent to established galler- in contemporary art practice without the ies, this small group of artists dened them- resources that public museums and govern- selves in contrast to the interests and styles ment support could provide. For contempo- of modern academically trained Ghanaian rary artists who use unconventional materials artists from prior generations such as Ablade and ephemeral formats, these challenges can In an eort to characterize and visualize Glover and Wiz Kudowor. be daunting. Although their artworks may these relationships, we began a project of map- ese FCA-aliated artists were critical of be popular, they are complex for galleries ping the interactions of individual and group the older generations’ subjects, themes, and and buyers to handle. Furthermore, many in actors, objects, and places in the Accra con- strict formal educations. ey brainstormed this new generation have more ambivalent temporary arts scene since  , drawing our ways to encourage a Ghanaian artistic relationships with commercialization than method from actor-network theory (Latour sphere that featured experimentation, public  did artists of prior generations, and build- : – ). While several institutions have participation, and critical debate. Meeting ing local arts infrastructure seems a greater been especially helpful for sustaining arts monthly, artists expected to nd little com- priority than establishing an art market. With spaces in Accra, there is no single institution, mercial interest for their works and focused limited public support for the arts, private artist, group actor, or imperative that was their attention toward creating interacting entities are lling in the gaps, including com- the prime instigator of the arts movement. networks of artists, arts educators, collectors, munities of artists such as the Foundation for Instead, the vitality of the arts movement in and enthusiasts. Early on, these conversations Contemporary Art, Ghana (FCA), organizers Ghana seems to be the result of incidental as extended across both physical spaces in Accra such as Mantse Aryeequaye, and NGOs such well as intentional collisions of actor-networks and digital spaces on social media platforms as the Nubuke Foundation. Working across of artists, academics, curators, works of art, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. institutional lines, these groups, artists, and public roadways, digital sites, institutional ey questioned the role of art in society, the curators have spent the last decade working imperatives, guerrilla exhibitions, and other identity politics of artists working in Africa, to assemble shared exhibit spaces, funding, such complex energies (Fig. ). and the potential for new modes of artistic logistical expertise, and digital resources in e Foundation for Contemporary Art, production to circumvent problematic trends order to facilitate the growing contemporary Ghana is one primary institutional front- related to Euro-American art worlds and the art scene. runner of the current arts scene in Accra. place of explicitly African art within them

 african arts AUTUMN 2018 VOL. 51, NO. 3 Downloaded from| http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 (Woets : ). performative interventions that increasingly woman (Fig. ). Martin Toloku, a self-taught In , not long aer FCA was founded, pervade Accra’s social life. e same year they artist who produced a large installation in Atta Kwami founded the international artists founded Accra[dot]alt, Neely and Aryeequaye James Fort Prison for Chale Wote, buries workshop SaNsA in Kumasi. is workshop started the Chale Wote street art festival in newspaper-plastered works of scavenged brought together artists and intellectuals dialogue with FCA and other artists, city wood in termite colonies that he raises near from across Africa, its diaspora, and Europe, planners, and interested parties. Young his home. e nal sculptures are criss- encouraging cross-pollinating conversations FCA-aliated artists brought vital conver- crossed by deep furrows where termites have and collaborations that carry on in annual sations about public art, accessibility, and consumed them. He carefully removes each workshops till today. Under the directorship cultural infrastructure into the festival, while termite from the sculpture (using smoke) of artists Adjoa Amoah and Ato Annan since Accra[dot]alt represented these in visually then returns it to his colonies. He considers  , the FCA has also facilitated inter- compelling ways through editorial content these termites his active collaborators. Cho- national workshops in contemporary art, created and produced in Ghana. Over the reographer and performance artist Elisabeth including annual Curatorial Intensives with past seven years, Chale Wote has transformed Efua Sutherland, who founded the Accra Independent Curators International (ICE). from a series of loosely connected events held eatre Workshop in  , dances, directs, By , FCA had built up the largest public in a single day in the old Jamestown section and writes ­uid performance pieces that draw art library in Ghana, with over  texts. of Accra to a week-long public showcase of on Ghana’s strong history of theatrical writing Unfortunately, this library was destroyed in contemporary artists, artworks, audiovisual and performance, incorporating sound as  when a large tree fell upon and crushed technologies, institutions, materials, and well as emerging technologies to explore FCA headquarters, exposing the library col- residents that draws tens of thousands of identity and myth-making. Each year since lections to damage. Another priority for FCA participants and observers.  , the Accra eatre workshop has held a has been community-based arts education In  , a few years aer Accra[dot]alt was children’s workshop, Summer Shakespeare, programs in Accra. FCA oen partners with founded, Ghanaian cultural historian Nana around the time of Chale Wote. the Dei Centre: for the study of contemporary Oforiatta Ayim relocated to Accra from Lon- When these diverse artworks are positioned art, established by businessman Seth Dei to don and established ANO, a cultural research next to one another in large, multilayered exhibit his collection of modern and con- platform whose principal mission is to create shows such as the KNUST year-end exhibi- temporary Ghanaian art, house an art library and facilitate alternative ways of exhibiting tions, they create complex sensory landscapes named for Joe Nkrumah, and oer education- art that bypass traditional museum routes. for audiences to navigate. e space of the al programming in the visual arts. In  ANO began an online “Cultural exhibition hall is thus transformed into some- At the same time, others were actively Encyclopaedia” of African arts and culture thing radically open-ended and dialogic. In expanding resources and opportunities to in partnership with the Art + Technology line with growing appreciation for large and support the practice and appreciation of Program of the Los Angeles Museum of heterogeneous exhibitions, Accra[dot]alt, FCA, Ghanaian art in Accra and the nation. In Contemporary Art. Emerging from these and individual artists have taken to social , working to cra a noncommercial multimedia conversations, certain themes media as naturally multivocal and multimodal space for art appreciation, KNUST-educated have come to occupy Ghana’s youthful gen- platforms for exhibition. artist Ko Setordji joined with arts activists eration of artists, including gender binaries, Content streams and “shares” allow media Odile Tevie and Tutu Agyere to establish the market forces, and engagement with the work to spread across time and space in a way Nubuke Foundation. Dedicated to preserving and lives of everyday residents and laborers in that museum exhibitions alone cannot. At the arts, heritage, and culture of Ghana, the the city. By bringing this concern for workers the technical level, Facebook, Twitter, and foundation collects the work of a wide variety to the foreground, artists call attention to the Instagram algorithms expose users to a vast of Ghanaian artists, from academically complex landscapes of labor and identity that array of media content, while also optimizing trained contemporary painters to self-taught shape Accra’s streets, very much in keeping their individual experiences according to artists and traditional weavers. It hosts artist with the social practice and “archeology of their expressed interests. On the side of the residencies and workshops; mounts tempo- the city” that is integral to the art curriculum user, this means that social media forums are rary exhibitions of historical, modern, and at KNUST, where many of the artists studied. multifarious and crowded exhibition spaces contemporary art; and oers a range of edu- A few examples: KNUST MFA student that are nonetheless tailored to user’s inter- cational programs for children and adults. Priscilla Kennedy is known for her provoca- ests, encouraging individual engagement. In , art activist and producer Mantse tive embroidered hangings that portray nude rough social media in Ghana’s art scene, Aryeequaye and scholar Dr. Sionne Neely or partially clad women who are anything audiences participate in observing, sharing, founded Accra[dot]alt, a digital platform for but passive recipients of the viewer’s gaze. and promoting art culture as well as critiqu- , drawing together contemporary A green-haired girl chops o her long hair ing it through direct comments. Given the multimedia experimentations in Ghanaian with a menacing set of scissors, anoth- rapidity with which content travels in online creative arts. With a website that focused as er tears at her clothing, another pulls her spheres, both arts conversations and digitized much on design as content, Accra[dot]alt underwear down to her ankles. Priscilla art pieces can outrun the control of the pioneered new ways of representing creativity cras these works by rst tracing the images original producers—artwork and ideas can in the region. Not only did they highlight onto keyeh (a type of male Muslim head be copied, transformed, commented upon, or explicit products of artistic creation, such covering) purchased from public markets in excavated with far greater ease than physical as electronic music, sculpture, and writings; Accra, and then commissioning male Muslim counterparts. By limiting what producers can they also drew attention to artists’ lifestyles, embroiderers to nish the nal images with say about their posts—such as an image of fashion, and attitudes as creative works par thread and stitching. Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, a performance or a photograph of a new art excellence, as they have done extensively with a KNUST-educated performance artist and piece—these platforms give audiences great artist and DJ Steloo Live. Accra[dot]alt and instructor in the Department of Painting and breadth for interpreting, commenting, or their alternative music station Sabolai Radio Sculpture, orchestrates frequently visceral reading each work in contexts unique to its have promoted the works of sound inno- gender-queer performances in public spaces, content streams. vators in West Africa and beyond, drawing and challenges audiences to face his/her ese works and their digital production attention to the sound, music, and time-based survival in Ghanaian public life as man and are rmly rooted within the everyday soil of

VOL. 51, NO.3 AUTUMN 2018 african arts  Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00411 by guest on 28 September 2021 | Accra and Kumasi in line with Daniel Miller’s de Cali, Tel Aviv, Venice for the Biennale, the KNUST administration announced plans to return insights that ­ourishing digital spaces can be Kassel for Documenta, and numerous other the building to the Faculty of Art for use as a museum. situated in profoundly local grounds as well locations. Just as virtually every museum Restoration of the space is underway. 5 Olivier Marcel (2017) has made a call for further as globally (Miller et al. : ). Broad- that collects contemporary art has or desires data-driven studies of African art worlds, demon- cast across social media, artists and digital a work by El Anatsui, increasingly curators strating a visually rich approach in his social network art activists draw attention to the hidden are seeking works by other leading Ghanaian analysis of Pan-African curation and exhibition materials and futuristic fantasies of Accra’s artists. While this is a positive development networks. boroughs. ey use Instagram photos that for the artists and for international audi- 6 Sutherland’s unpublished public lecture at the track the progress of installations in the old ences, it contributes to the situation Chika University of Florida’s Center for African Studies on November 3, 2017 was titled “Deverb: Echo Chambers neighborhood of Jamestown, home to Chale Okeke-Agulu lamented in his op-ed in the and Common ings Made Holy in Akan Society.” Wote, and use Facebook Live feeds that allow New York Times, “Modern Art is Being 7 Gallery 1957 has hosted a series of single-artist local and international publics to remotely Gentried,” where he observed that “[T]he contemporary installations with concurrent public attend performances and panels at the Muse- continent’s masses will be the biggest losers. programming. Artists shown to date have been Serge um of Science and Technology in conjunc- ey will be denied access to artworks that Clottey, Zohra Opoku, Jeremiah Quarshie, Va-Bene tion with KNUST year-end shows. A caveat: dene the age of independence and symbolize Fiatsi, Gerald Chukwuma, Yaw Owusu, Godfried ese technologies, guided as they are by the slow process of postcolonial recovery” Donkor, Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, and Paa Joe, and designers and tailors of Fancy Dress Masquerades. ones’ preferences and existing networks, do (Okeke ). Fortunately, both the Dei Cen- not necessarily cultivate fertile discussion. In tre and the Nubuke Foundation have built References cited a lecture at the University of Florida in , and continue to develop collections of Gha- Elisabeth Efua Sutherland referenced social naian modern and contemporary art that are Kwami, Atta. 2013. Kumasi Realism 1951–2007: An African Modernism. London: Hurst. media “lter bubbles” and “echo chambers” accessible to the public and accompanied by in expressing her view that players in Ghana’s rich interpretive programming for audiences Latour, Bruno. 2007. Reassembling the Social. Hamp- contemporary art world oen communicate of all ages and backgrounds. is does not shire: Oxford University Press. only among themselves and have no signi- negate the pressing need for a publicly funded Marcel, Olivier. 2017. “Toward Data-driven Art cant impact on the thinking or daily realities museum devoted to collecting, exhibiting, Studies: A Social Network Analysis of Contemporary of the greater population of Accra or the and interpreting the art of Ghana. African Art.” African Arts 50, (4): 6–11. nation of Ghana. Another moral quandary for Ghanaian Miller, Daniel, Elisabetta Costa, Nell Haynes, Tom In the midst of these developments, there artists who have embraced the alternative McDonald, Razvan Nicolescu, Jolynna Sinanan, are new institutions in Accra that are poised practices introduced by the Foundation Juliano Spyer, Shriram Venkatraman, and Xinyuan Wang. 2016. How the World Changed Social Media. to capitalize on, promote, and extend contem- for Contemporary Art, blaxTARLINES, London: UCL Press. porary artist’s works to largely international Acra[dot]alt, and other arts organizations buyers. Gallery , founded by Marwan is the potential to be seduced by the inter- Okeke-Agulu, Chika. 2017. “Modern African Art Is Being Gentried.” New York Times, May 20. https:// Zakhem, opened in  in the ve-star Kem- national art market and subsumed into www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/opinion/sunday/mod- penski Hotel, joining established commercial the global capitalist system against which ern-african-art-sothebys.html galleries such as Ablade Glover’s Artists kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, his colleagues, and many Republic of Ghana. 2014. Ministry of Tourism, Culture Alliance Gallery and Frances Ademola’s other artists have rebelled. As seid’ou has said and Creative Arts. Medium-Term Development Plan  Loom Gallery. Early during our stay in Accra of his own position, it is 2014–2017. Accra: GPC. in summer  we attended the opening of seid’ou, kąrî’kạchä. 2006. eoretical Foundations of the Jeremiah Quarshie’s exhibition Yellow Is the a constructive rather than resistance poli- KNUST Painting Programme: A Philosophical Inquiry Color of Water curated by KNUST graduate tics. It is to arm and thereby help invent and Its Contextual Relevance in Ghanaian Culture. student in curatorial studies Robin Riskin for an alternative to the global mainstream Unpublished PhD dissertation, Kwame Nkrumah Uni- Gallery , which at the time was direct- than to assimilate. However, like Derrida’s versity of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. “Pharmakon,” events in the global mainstream ed by ANO founder Nana Oforiatta-Ayim. seid’ou, kąrî’kạchä, George Ampratwum, Kwaku Boafo could function as both poison and cure, and In conjunction with the opening of the Kissiedu, and Robin Riskin. 2015. “Silent Ruptures: neither (seid’ou : ). exhibition, Marwan Zakhem organized a Emergent Art of the Kumasi College of Art.” Interna- panel on collecting contemporary African tional Journal of Humanities and Social Science 5 (10): art, where he was joined by Ablade Glover, 131–37. founder of Artists Alliance Gallery; Kerryn Notes seid’ou, kąrî’kạchä, and Jelle Bouwhuis. 2014. “Silent Greenberg, curator of international art at the 1 seid’ou’s education and career, including his Parodies: seid’ou, kąrî’kạchä in conversation with Jelle Tate Modern; Touria El Glaoui, founder of decision to change his name from Edwin Amankwah Bouwhuis.” In Jelle Bouwhuis and Kerstin Winking (eds.), Project 1975: Contemporary Art and the Postco- the : Contemporary African Art Fair; and to kąrî’kạchä seid’ou as part of his artistic practice, are discussed by Kwami (2013: 316–33). lonial Unconscious, pp. 111–18. London: Black Dog. Tutu Agyere of the Nubuke Foundation. In 2 We paraphrase a remark made by Kwasi Ohene- the audience were artists, curators, art faculty, Woets, Rhoda. 2011. “What Is is?” Framing Ghana- Ayeh in his presentation “e Politics of Relationality” ian Art from the Colonial to the Present. Unpublished journalists, collectors, auction house repre- for the panel Emancipation: Critical Art Teaching PhD dissertation, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. sentatives, students, and other art enthusiasts. in Kumasi and the Rise of Independent Public Art us from the outset of our research we were Projects in Ghana chaired by Atta Kwami and Bernard struck by the international attention riveted Akoi-Jackson at the ACASA Triennial in Accra on on developments in Accra and Kumasi. August 10, 2017. 3 e name is, of course, a play on that of the In the following weeks and months we Black Star Steamship Line operated 1919–1923 by became aware of the extent to which the Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement world is coming to Ghana and the degree Association to facilitate return to Africa and benecial to which Ghanaian artists are invited to do global trade for blacks in the Diaspora. residences and exhibit their work around the 4 A building intended to serve as an art museum world—in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dakar, Lagos, opened at KNUST in 2004. However, aer only a few exhibitions were mounted it was taken over by the London, New York, Philadelphia, Santiago university for revenue-generating purposes. In 2017,

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