African Borderland Sculpture

the works are traded. Families, clans, or workshops of artists can be involved; in the center that Roy addresses specifi- cally, a family of sculptors works for five African BorderlandSculpture different ethnic groups. This is significant information because it highlights the indigenous marketabil- PATRICKR. McNAUGHTON ity of art and the often pronounced enterprise of artists. It suggests, for example, a parallel between the production of The preceding five articles were pre- plex vehicles of contemplation and ac- art and the manufacture of iron, which sented as a panel called "African tion in most realms of social enterprise. was smelted at precolonial industrial Borderland Sculpture: Liminal Space in Insightfully early, in 1958, d'Azevedo centers and traded extensively along the the Study of Style," which I organized had made it clear that the Gola applied networks of commerce that have long for the February 1987 meetings of the refined aesthetic attitudes to their art been so very important in African his- College Art Association in Boston. My and artists. Thompson (1968, 1973) then tory (Goucher 1981, especially pp. 182- original call for papers will give an idea of showed that the Yoruba also maintained 83). It thus becomes possible to view art what we had in mind: "Studies of Afri- refined aesthetic attitudes and put them forms as commodities, as Arjun Ap- can sculpture style are most fruitful to work in several important social and padurai (1986) and Igor Kopytoff (1986) when they include explorations of cul- spiritual arenas. So it began to appear have recently defined them.1 Such a tural change and artists' motivations. that aesthetic consciousness might be a view in no way diminishes them as art. Politics, commerce, the stature of rule rather than an exception in Africa. If Rather, it allows us to perceive more sculptors, and the relationships between that proved true, we might find artists readily the facility that African artists sculptors and clients have all been and clients ready to use the manipula- have for placing their wares in patterns shown to shape style, and a growing tion of style as a resource in several ex- of trade, and it allows us to perceive body of research demonstrates that it is pressive and symbolic arenas. artworks more emphatically as objects of no longer possible to view the shape of Shortly thereafter Rene Bravmann tangible value, because of their forms African art as dictated by hermetically published two works that dramatically and their potential for meaning.2 sealed geographic, ethnic, or traditional expanded our understanding of style. The prominence and clout of art in Af- boundaries. Proclamations of pristine His Islam and TribalArt in West Africa rica have long been recognized by us. Its tribal morphologies hold little interest (1974) was a landmark exploration of forms can be compelling. Its presenta- for scholars who now view style as a both African Islam and traditional tion in orchestrated multimedia events fluid component in modes of expression sculptural forms that demonstrated just can be seductive. Its harnessing of that are dynamic and almost always how flexible and dynamic both could be. spiritual powers can be overwhelming. synergistic. His Open Frontiers (1973) took up the And its manipulation of ideas can en- "A most interesting space for the theme set forth by Sieber and Rubin and gage people in myriad influential ways. study of style occurs at the borders be- demonstrated its viability in no uncer- It is an element of culture primed for tween ethnic groups and between the tain terms. He began by deploring the communication, predisposed to carry regional populations that compose tired but tenacious notion that ethnic thought and emotion between people. them. These cutting edges harbor genres groups possess immutable ethnic styles. But it is so full of repetition, layered of sculpture that teach a great deal about He then quoted Simon Ottenberg (1971), meanings, and ambiguity that it is re- style development and its relationship to who had artfully equated the ideas of markably malleable in the hands of indi- a society's modes of thought. Current tribe and tribal style with a pronounced viduals or institutions. Thus art becomes research is beginning to show that even ethnocentric interest in cultural mor- a logical arena for the kinds of negotia- our ideas about some ethnic groups' re- phology that does not lead to fruitful un- tions by which institutions seek author- gional styles must now be revised. The derstanding. Finally, Bravmann de- ity and individuals seek personal and so- goal of this panel is to strengthen our veloped his position quite convincingly cial identities. The fact that art, as a understanding of African sculpture by examining the cultural, political, and phenomenon possessed of so many vital styles by looking at their manifestations economic histories of two areas. Indeed characteristics, behaves in many in- in these borderlands." he made it clear that fluidity of style in stances as a commodity among cultures Thus the panel intended to explore as- the borderlands between ethnic groups that have placed the highest value on pects of the ideas set forth originally in was a vital and defining characteristic of commerce is testimony to its perceived 1968, when Roy Sieber and Arnold African art. Thus in the space of five capacities and powers. Rubin published Sculptureof BlackAfrica: years, from Sculpture of Black Africa to The authors I have mentioned here are The Paul TishmanCollection. The message Open Frontiers, the horizons for research by no means the only ones who have of those authors was deceptively simple opened up immensely for African-art examined ethnicity and style over the and immensely influential. While telling historians. past two decades. An excursion through us, innocently enough, that African art Recently Christopher Roy took the back issues of AfricanArts, for exam- was more than the machinations of another important step in the effort to ple, reveals many more, and all of them ethnicity, they destabilize several old no- understand the relationship between make it clear that African art has never tions - like those of the anonymous art- ethnicity and style. In Art and Life in Af- been a slave to ethnicity, and that ethni- ist, of the blind following of conventions, rica: Selectionsfrom the Stanley Collection city itself is a most fluid and supple de- and of a continent devoid of art history (1985), he explores the phenomenon of signation. We see, for example, that and full of art traditions too fragile to style centers in Africa, where artists pro- clans are at least as important and often survive the West or Islam. duce traditional works for several ethnic much more instrumental than ethnic Meanwhile, Warren d'Azevedo and groups at the same time, sculpting eclec- groups in the development of styles. We Robert Farris Thompson were busy tically in a variety of styles while con- see too that commerce and entrepre- demonstrating the existence of sophis- tributing significantly to the history of neurship are major ingredients in an art ticated art forms that function as com- style development in the areas to which stew that seems consistently to place 76 premiums on the vitality and excitement of change while nevertheless managing need to reach more of those who persist to keep the flavor true, which is to say in being fascinated by notions we jet- "traditional." But "traditional," like tisoned long ago, notions that drag art "tribe," "primitive," and "witchcraft," is down by denying its relationship to a term quite ripe for energetic reevalua- thought and actual social practices. tion. "Traditional"does not imply frozen We can apply this point to several in time, or invoke the cliche about doing realms, and we should because each things as the ancestors did. Obviously, makes the others more serious and sys- for example, tradition and change are tematic. So let me conclude with a refer- not mutually exclusive, although at cer- ence to African literature. Camara Laye, tain times in certain places they generate born in 1924 in Guinea to parents who tension between each other that be- had belonged to a clan that excelled in comes a kind of dialectic. Clearly, too, sorcery, blacksmithing, and sculpting, tradition is something negotiated and became one of the best-known and renegotiated constantly, much to the greatest West African authors. He lived benefit of art, and the perplexed delight for many years in Paris, served as an am- of art historians. Finally, as if there could bassador to Ghana and in Sekou Toure's be an end to all this reevaluation, models how the people to whom we talk actually Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then in of African style geography that suggest interpret and employ in their own social spent many years exile. He was any- a man. And the pure cores and vagabond peripheries lives the lore we so frequently request of thing but simple yet must be considered simplistic, at least in them and then use in our work as translator of his last work wrote that in his books "the instinc- an enormous number of instances. In sources for alleged histories. Laye captured and the spite of the focus of my call for papers, In addressing the pitfalls and com- tive poetry of the native African observation and as well as what I call borderlands and Bravmann plexities of doing oral history, this litera- imagination, the of a Western calls frontiers can be best understood as a ture also clarifies its strengths and use- scholarship, lively frame of mind possible anywhere, from fulness, and that is a contribution of mind" (Laye 1980). Surely our research in has us an ethnic group's edge to its center.

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