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Art and Peformance in Mali Stephen Wooten The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Faculty Publications 3-1-1999 Playing with Time - Art and Peformance in Mali Stephen Wooten Follow this and additional works at: http://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Wooten, S. (1999). Playing with Time - Art and Peformance in Mali. African Arts, 32(1), 89-90. Available at: http://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/8273 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. better-known artists, artists, [and] [and] there there is ais world a world of of tered sweater sweater who who gazes gazes up atup his at liberatorhis liberator in nuanced in field studies of art forms, and an gray inin between,between, a aspace space in inwhich which talented talented awe, oror an an image image of ofdrunken drunken whites whites on an on idyl- an idyl- engaging theoretical perspective on issues of 'craftsmen' produce produce work work apparently apparently indistin- indistin- lic game-viewinggame-viewing cruise cruise on "Lake"on "Lake" Kariba, Kariba, agency and dynamism in sociocultural sys- guishable from from the the established established artists artists who who attended by by uniformed uniformed Tonga Tonga servants servants whose whose tems. According to the author, "...Segou's have...themselves turned turned to tomass mass producing producing people were were forced forced out out of theof theZambezi Zambezi Valley Valley by youth by puppet masquerade is a specialized and highly commercializedcommercialized works works of ofart. art. [A]ll [A]ll these these the risingrising waters waters that that created created this thisvast dam.vast dam. highly valued genre of kuma (Bamana lan- sculptors have have refined refined their their techniques techniques to ato a Volume II II includes includes three three essays essays that thatseem seem guage; speech); more than a narrative con- point wherewhere they they are are able able to toconsistently consistently pro- pro- misplaced. The The first first is "Contemporaryis "Contemporary Art in Art structed in only from words, it is a dialogue that duce aestheticallyaesthetically pleasing pleasing and and highly highly mar- mar- Zimbabwe," by by Paul Paul Wade, Wade, which which provides provides a arises a through the interrelationship of sculp- ketable forms."forms." Much Much of of the the stone stone sculpture sculpture on on personal view view rather rather than than the thecomprehensive comprehensive ture, song, drumming, and dance. While the exhibition appears appears to to fall fall into into the the gray gray zone zone overview that this volume needed. The second is tenor of these masquerades is playful, the top- Zilberg describes.describes. a scientific analysis of the petrography of the ics are profoundly serious" (p. 186). Like the For McEwen, a doctrine he termed "Per- rocks used in Zimbabwean sculpture, by George domain she has chosen to explore, Amoldi's manence of Culture" accounted for a "Shona" Stoops. The third (Neo Matome and Stephen contribution is simultaneously playful and pro- renaissance of their ancient tradition of stone. Williams) argues that a Zimbabwean institution foundly serious: her narrative is unpretentious He viewed the new works as imbued with should be established as the arts center for the and spirited; her analysis, intellectually rigor- symbolism similar to the old but now subcontinent-which en- seems wasteful since ous and stimulating. shrined in modernist forms so compelling South that Africa already has several excellent insti- In the preface Amoldi explains that her they would "revive moder art itself." tutions This that could play host. This catalogue experience studying a set of "disembodied" fanciful blend of ethnographic analogy space and would have been better spent on lettingsculptural forms in a museum setting led her to modernist heroics still bedevils the reception sculptors of speak for themselves, and havingconduct intensive field research in a multieth- Zimbabwean sculpture, as Zilberg points Wade out. discuss his nine years as head of the nic sculp- setting on the right bank of the Niger River The other essays in Volume II generally tureskirt workshop at the National Gallery-this in central Mali. Since 1978 she has documented critical issues of patronage, promotion, and would qual- have provided useful historical material. how members of youth associations (kamalen ity, ignore related scholarship, and seem ten- Despite such problems, Volume II presents tonw) in the Segou region vivify a spectacular tative. McLoughlin's essay on Zimbabwean much new material to link Zimbabwe to broad- array of wooden heads (yirikunw) within a per- painting, for example, which juxtaposes the er atti-debates on contemporary art. A key issue formance genre known as puppet theater. tudes of black and white artists and writers with appears to be the degree to which both black (Among Bamana farmers it is typically called both landscape and the city, ignores the ideolog- and white Zimbabwean artists articulate their Sogo bb, literally, "the animal comes forth"; ical loading of colonial and postcolonial atti- identity through the lens of moderism. Cer- among Boso and Somon6 fisherpeople it is typ- tudes toward Zimbabwean landscape. This tainly, plenty of scope remains to sharpen and ically referred to as Do bb, "the secret comes allows the many nineteenth-century images by refine the scholarship and research on stone forth.") In fact, Amoldi's decision to present her Thomas Baines in the exhibition to escape cri- sculpture, and Bourgois seems likely to con- findings using the central themes of play and tique. His essay also fails to point out that at- tribute to this subject as his doctoral research ontime stems from insights that puppet theater titudes toward the land remain the most the topic proceeds. participants and audience members provided contentious issue in Zimbabwe, where President Despite its lack of professionalism, the in their commentaries on and interpretations of Mugabe is expropriating white-owned farms combined to catalogue succeeds in its aim ofthis creative performance tradition. This deci- fulfill the promise of the war of liberation being to widely representative, and it promises sion reveals the author's profound engagement redistribute the land. Van den Audenaerde re- to be a valuable resource for the teaching and with local concepts and discourse. marks in his preface that Zimbabwe "has appreciation of more than two millennia of Chapter one plunges the reader directly remained to this day a rather mysterious coun- Zimbabwean art. Overall, this highly ambi- into the flow of a particular festival Arnoldi try" for most Europeans, evoking visions of tious project is indeed, as Van den Audenaerde observed in the Bamana quarter of the village stone ruins, of "the legendary kingdoms ofremarks, a "landmark for the promotion of Kirango during June of 1979. Through vivid Monomotapa and Lobengula," of wildlife and Zimbabwean culture," and Els De Palmenaer ethnographic description, the actors, forms, the Victoria Falls, and, for some, of the bitter civil and other staff members are to be congratulat- and scenes of the world of the puppet theater war that only ended with independence in 1980. ed for the feat of coordinating it. Institutions swiftly come into focus. We gain a sense of the Neither McLoughlin's essay nor the project as devoteda to "traditional" African art would do hard work that goes into staging a successful whole does enough to deconstruct the colonial well, however, to take note of some of the pit- performance, the nature of the roles of the key legacy and Western myths about Zimbabwe. falls evidenced here of venturing into contem- participants (the young men who are the Nor do they admit the blood and guts of the war porary art without the necessary curatorial dancers/performers and musicians, the young or the current conflicts. expertise and perspective. D women who form the chorus, and diverse Instead, it is the Shona snuff containers members of the audience), the cast of puppet made from bullets and the sword in the form of characters, and the internal organization of an AK47 rifle in Dewey's essay that provide the this spectacular event. By immersing the read- requisite perspective of a country deeply scored er in the flow of a specific performance at the by historical tragedies, in the face of which outset of her narrative, Amoldi effectively many of its people have mobilized their tradi- PLAYING WITH TIME underscores one of her main theoretical tions in resolute resistance and clung to the Art and Performance in points: analysis of expressive culture should sense that they are surrounded by the spirits of Central Mali focus on historically and spatially situated actors and action. their ancestors. (Others, black and white, have Mary Jo Arnoldi become appallingly corrupt by any measure.) Issues of definition and historical conceptu- Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1995. 134 And the volumes' only antidote to the romantic alization of puppet masquerades lie at the cen- pp., 92 b/w & 20 color photos, map, 2 tables. deification of "Nature" is Peta Jones's incidental ter of chapter two. Aroldi argues that previous $29.95 hardcover. description of an aging Tonga carver of curio studies of expressive culture in this area of West elephants planning a special trip to see his first Reviewed by Stephen Wooten Africa have promoted a flawed understanding real elephant! Since there were evidently no lim- of the genre as a secular spectacle derived from its on the inclusivity of the project's second part, In the pages of Playing with Time, Mary the Jo disintegration disintegration of sacred of sacred or religious or religious mani- mani- it could well have included some recent Arnoldi provides a wealth of ethnographic data festations.
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