Masks on the Move Defying Genres, Styles, and Traditions in the Cameroonian Grassfields Silvia Forni n the realm of African art, masks are some of the most This article investigates the longstanding history of commer- exemplary and iconic artworks. Whether displayed cial practices and stylistic experimentation that characterize to be admired for their shape, form, and volumes, or the production of masks and other artworks in the Grassfields presented in dialogue with ethnographic information of Western Cameroon. While I acknowledge the importance of and contextual images, masks are omnipresent in col- long-distance and international trade as an important stimulus lections and displays of African art. As aesthetic and for creativity and artistic production, my intention is to high- ethnographic objects, masks are used as gateways to the under- light the significance of contemporary artistic inventions in Istanding and appreciation of “cultural styles” as well as the for- shaping local understanding of aesthetics and material displays. mal and creative solutions adopted by artists and workshops. Yet Collections, museums, eco-museological itineraries and, more the appeal of masks also relies on their perceived irreducible dif- recently, experimentations and artistic interventions by contem- ference and mysterious spiritual aura. Even when isolated and porary artists Hervé Youmbi and Hervé Yamguen (Fig. 1) have stripped of their fiber costumes and attachments, there is always produced a complex and intriguing regional and national artistic a reference to the body of an absent wearer, thus evoking a sit- scene. Here the taxonomies distinguishing commercial produc- uated and embodied history of production, performance, and tions from “authentic artworks” have been blurred and subverted social meaning that often does not accompany the mask into the in local practices, where masks are now moving between spheres museum. Yet even when isolated and stripped of their embodied of practice and understanding that defy canonical strictures. meaning, masks are still perceived as affecting. The meaning constrictions of masks in museum displays NOT JUST FOR TOURISTS: ART AND MARKETS IN THE often extend to many other African art objects which, in their TWENTIETH CENTURY aesthetic and function, known or imagined, suggest differ- In a 1910 postcard, published in 2014 on Bruno Claessens’s ent forms of conceptual and geographical displacement. Many blog, four young men stand by an artfully arranged display of galleries and museums in Europe and North America contain decorative masks and figures carved in Kongo style (Fig. 2).1 This large numbers of religious and performative objects, collected early Loango market stall, featuring “fetishes” for sale, was strik- as Europeans expanded their control over territory and over the ingly similar to more contemporary commercial displays of com- minds and bodies of people throughout the continent. While parable objects found in rural and urban centers across Africa these were often seized, stolen, or acquired as people “con- and beyond. While postcards documenting early tourist markets verted” to new beliefs and cultural practices, others were pur- are not very common, the practice of creating objects for sale chased in rather straightforward market interactions. Indeed, to merchants, travelers, and colonial administrators is as old as the fascination shown by foreigners towards these “mysterious” contact itself. The classic examples of the Afro-Portuguese ivo- and “sacred” artworks also gave birth, almost immediately, to a ries (Fagg 1959, Bassani et al. 1988) or Loango carved tusks and rather secular, market-oriented production of masklike objects figurines (Bridges 2013) are well-known cases. Yet many travel- meant for display rather than performance. ers’ and collectors’ accounts testified to the entrepreneurship of 38 | african arts SUMMER 2016 VOL. 49, NO. 2 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AFAR_a_00285 by guest on 24 September 2021 forni.indd 38 19/02/2016 4:10 PM 1 First ceremonial outing of artist Hervé Yamguen with his newly created Ku’ngang mask. Village of Dakpeudjie near Bandja, West Cameroon, March 30, 2015. Photo: Hervé Youmbi local artists and middlemen, fast to grasp and cater to the tastes Such interactions were clearly not limited to the Congo area, and preferences of new customers. Scholars have highlighted but were recurrent in almost any region touched by Euro- the importance of commerce in shaping artistic production pean “civilizing” and “scientific” endeavors. As colonial powers since early contact times and likely even earlier.2 A paradigmatic expanded their control over inland territories, new objects and example is found in Enid Schildkrout’s essay on Fredrick Starr productions started to develop to cater to the needs of a society and Herbert Lang’s collecting in the Congo. In one of the pages in transformation. The Cameroonian Grassfields offer important of his diary from 1905, Starr wrote: insight into this process of artistic and market changes over the Fetishes were too plenty and too fresh to be entirely satisfactory course of the twentieth century. … Yesterday a well carved wooden figure was offered. I refused it The Grassfields, corresponding to the francophone West and because it was rather new and empty in its stomach hole. Today it the anglophone North West Regions of the Republic of Camer- appeared again, this time with a fat round belly neatly sewed up and oon, is a densely populated, politically and linguistically divided well smeared with cam and oil. I agreed to the price, getting it down region, and a well-known area in the study of African art. While to 1.50 francs (Starr, Dec. 4, 1905 quoted in Schildkrout 1998:182). never a favorite of the European and North American high-end VOL. 49, NO. 2 SUMMER 2016 african arts | 39 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AFAR_a_00285 by guest on 24 September 2021 forni.indd 39 19/02/2016 4:10 PM 2 A Loango stall selling masks and other decora- tive carvings. 1919. Photo: courtesy of Stefan Klein 3 Mosé Yeyap with his collection of regalia and commercial objects in front of the museum he estab- lished in Fumban. Photo: courtesy of Christraud Geary art market because of their bold and blocky forms, Grassfields the first decades of the twentieth century, Grassfields artworks arts have nevertheless found a place in all significant institu- were systematically and competitively acquired by government tional collections of African art.3 The centers of production officials, scholars, missionaries, doctors, curators, and explor- and use of these artworks were located in a relatively small and ers (Geary 1983, 2011). Important field collections from this area densely populated area in the west of the country, but despite are found in prestigious European and North American insti- their known local specificity, Grassfields arts have become an tutions and particularly in Germany, Switzerland, and France almost metonymic representation of the artistic production of (Obenhofer 2010). Chris Geary (1983:85–94) accounts for the Cameroon as a whole.4 almost aggressive early twentieth century collecting practices One recurrent theme of the scholarship of this region was of various foreigners interested in securing the best pieces for an emphasis on style and shared material culture as important their government or funding institution. While older objects elements defining the area as an ethnic/cultural unit. Accord- were most coveted, collectors would not refuse to purchase the ing to Fowler (1997), art was what defined the Grassfields bold zoomorphic and anthropomorphic masks, stools, pipes, fig- regional character, despite great political and linguistic frag- ures, richly decorated containers, garments, and other artworks mentation. Indeed, the stylistic homogeneity of the region was a inspired by the local material culture of power and produced by feature that reflected in visible terms the broad circulation of art- the many contemporary workshops active at the time. works through short- and long-distance networks of exchange, Many scholars have written about the complicated historical whereby masks, stools, pipes, and other prestige items would be traded and exchanged both as diplomatic gifts and as commodities (Bravmann 1973, War- nier 1985) (Fig. 3). The slippage in identi- fication from artistic style to a somewhat uniform cultural area was by no means unique to this region and can be traced as a common taxonomic and classificatory device in many canon-shaping art his- torical publications. Yet, in the Grassfields as elsewhere, trade and exchanges were more influential than cultural or linguistic identity in determining artistic forms and regional aesthetics.5 Whether locally produced or acquired, the public display of art was an impor- tant feature of the manifestation of local political power and a marker of distinc- tion, which identified the rank and pres- tige of individuals and households. In 40 | african arts SUMMER 2016 VOL. 49, NO. 2 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AFAR_a_00285 by guest on 24 September 2021 forni.indd 40 19/02/2016 4:10 PM in press; Geary 2011; Tardits 1980, 2004). In addition, Bamum leaders, and particularly King Njoya (r. 1886–1931), strategically used art as a vehicle of diplomatic and commercial exchange with the Europeans who explored and/or settled in the region since the early 1900s (Geary 1994). The political and diplomatic production supported by Bamum kings and notables rapidly morphed into a broader range of artworks when King Njoya, towards the end of his reign, released control over the sale of and access to prestigious goods, allowing court artists to work not only for the king and foreigners but also for a broader segment of local society.6 Other kingdoms specializing in art and prestige items production also saw the progressive expansion and diver- sification of their clientele, with workshops producing a broad range of objects for local, national, and international markets. 5 King’s reception room.