The three chapters of Part 4 and the eight Winston Blackmun), and on to a study of the of Part 5, however, are largely concerned with Handspring Puppet Company’s works. Peter book review art that is made for, or appropriated by, the Ukpodoku argues from a theater practice per- fine arts world of galleries and exhibitions, spective that, used in the staging of Kentridge something directly addressed by Kathrin and Taylor’s Ubu and the Truth Commission Langenohl. The appropriation of modernities (1997), these works allow the liberation of art into African traditions is tackled by Monica from museums through social engagement Blackmun Visoná in dealing with the depic- The section ends with a discussion of the poli- tion of Western-style top hats on the West tics and polemic surrounding the building coasts of Africa. It is also raised in other of a Museum of Contemporary Art in Rabat, essays on the training of artists to contribute Morocco by Katarzyna Pieprzak. to and participate in discourses around “art” Part 8 comprises Sally Price’s review of the and modernisms, but in different sections of ways in which Africa and the rest of the old the book. Adherence to a very fluid chronol- ‘third world’ are still cast as “primitive” through ogy results in Dina A. Ramadan’s essay on the the architecture and display stratagems of the rise of realistic representation in the Egyp- museé du Quai Branly in Paris. The fact that tian art academy appearing in a different sec- similar strategies have been followed in a num- tion from art training in Nigeria (Peter Probst ber of other renovations of European museums on Oshogbo), Zimbabwe (Elizabeth Morton might have made an interesting codicil to this on the workshops), Ghana (Atta Kwami on already much-covered story. Antubam), Senegal (Joanna Grabski on Ecole The final section (Part 9) contains six chap- de Dakar) and Uganda (Sunanda K. Sanyal ters, as mixed as the others, but all raise sig- on Makerere). All are concerned with institu- nificant questions. Pamela Allara’s essay on tions producing artists in structured teaching Zwelethu Mthethwa’s work, apart from some Portraiture and Photography in environments, and it would have been useful problematic ideas about the status of “town- Africa to have had them thematically grouped, with ship” and “resistance” art, argues for the recog- Edited by John peffer and Elisa- a guiding introduction. Placing John Picton’s nition of Mthethwa’s pastel drawings as highly beth l. Cameron article, which poses many of the necessary as his photographs. Meghan L.E. Kirkwood’s questions for such framing, at the end of Part essay on why a North Korean aesthetic suited Bloomington: indiana University 5 rather than at its beginning, also appears the post-liberation government of Nujoma press, 2013. 452 pp., 151 color somewhat counter-intuitive. is persuasive, but someone has missed the illus., index. $35.00, paper The chapters on the rise of art schools and fact that none of the works is by an African circuits in independent African nations all “deeply invested in an African locale,” and that reviewed by Jessica Williams point to pivotal interactions with Western their presence in a book on African art is thus patrons, teachers, and institutions in the initial deeply suspect (as is the art itself as a formu- In the past two decades, a notable number of production and subsequent consumption and lation of a monolithic political dominance). exhibitions, catalogues, and survey texts have circulation of this art. Its modernity lay more Kinsey Katchka suggests that, in the context of begun to establish—and, at best, to problema- in the fact that it was being made primarily as the global and local biennales, African identi- tize—histories of photography in Africa. As art, as something divorced from function and ties are “redrawn” and understood by diverse John Peffer notes in his introduction, despite tradition. Whether this affected its African- audiences in many different ways. This should the dominant interest in studio practices and ness is a question asked only by some authors. work to destabilize the notion of a monolithic portrait photography displayed by interna- Picton and Bogumil Jewsiewicki are two who Africanness, something which is reinforced by tional curators, the art market, and resulting raise the related question of what products Sidney Littlefield Kasfir’s discussion of a num- publications, analyses of particular local his- may be called “art.” ber of Ugandan artists whose concern is with tories and portraiture’s specific cultural mean- Another single-chapter section (Part 6) local traditions which are primarily Bagandan, ings in relation to the medium have largely consists of dele jegede’s discussion of trans- then Ugandan, and probably only to mod- been disregarded in favor of broad humanis- nationalism and globalization in relation to ern and modernist outsiders “African.” Both tic approaches, leading one to “assume inac- African-American artists and those of the Till Főrster and Gitti Salami tackle case stud- curately that the historical experience of contemporary African Diaspora, contrasting ies that have been cast as “popular art” and its photography—the phenomenological basis the approaches of Enwezor and Ogbechie to imbrications into local political and religious for considering photographic meaning—is a curating contemporary African art with that domains, and re-surface the question of the cultural universal on European terms” (p. 3). of Magnin and Pigozzi. The next two parts status of African art works and the world in move on to what may, with some greater clar- which they circulate. ity, be considered “contemporary” modern For those who have a strong understand- art made by African artists. Here the group- ing of the literature that precedes it, this book ing reverts to the mélange that Allen Roberts offers a gathering of less-familiar case stud- to the African art corpus because it so obvi- and Polly Nooter Roberts (quoted on the back ies that enables one to expand the field. It is a ously downplays the importance of the visual. cover) find “marvellous.” The reader moves companion which may be useful as an addi- through a study of the search for an indig- tion, but will possibly not function as the pri- Anitra Nettleton is Chair and Director of enous identity by the Vohou Vohou group mary text through which issues can clearly be the Centre for Creative Arts of Africa at the Wits in Côte d’Ivoire (Yacouba Konate), via a plea introduced to students at any level. One of the Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, for the recognition of contemporary bronze- main reasons for this is that there are so few Johannesburg. Her research has encompassed casters’ works as contemporary rather than illustrations, and that many of them are tiny, a topics in historical and contemporary African faux traditional “art” from Benin (Barbara real drawback to an otherwise useful addition arts. [email protected]

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141209-001_78-96_CS6.indd 94 12/12/14 3:53 PM Through extensive field and archival research, all-too-familiar tropes regarding local percep- fruitful endeavor in that it offers readings of the thirteen contributors to this publication tions of photography in Africa that have been these images that are not grounded in western complicate traditional European definitions embedded in Western photographic theories. imperatives. Looking to W.J.T. Mitchell, Till of portraiture and its specifications as a genre Taking as her point of departure the miscon- Förster discusses the intermediality of images while establishing theoretically sound dis- ception that those who reject being photo- and their cultural changes in meaning as they courses that address the social and cultural graphed do so out of fear that a “photograph migrate across mediums—from wooden effi- specificities of both portraiture and photog- steals the soul,” Strother explores reasons for gies, to the physical printing paper of the pho- raphy in Africa. Comprising twelve chapters why an individual might not want to be imaged tograph, to the material weave of the canvas, and a significantly promising introduction, before moving on to an analysis of the com- to the pixilated screen of a cell phone. Chris- Portraiture and Photography in Africa is an plex interrelatedness of photography, sorcery, traud Geary addresses similar ideas in the indispensable addition to the scholarship on and modernity.1 Looking to culturally specific book’s second section. Eloquent and intrigu- the histories of the medium. Offering a com- vocabulary surrounding portrait photography ing, her contribution investigates the histories pilation of essays that build on foundational among Pende in the Democratic Republic of and uses of photography in the Bamum King- studies of Africanists like Stephen Sprague, the Congo, Strother compellingly argues against dom of Cameroon, including but not limited Tobias Wendl, and others, this well-illustrated Rosalind Krauss’s (and others’) contention that to how portrait photography both inspired and remarkably affordable text provokingly a physical relationship exists between the object and influenced the drawing and painting of explores the production of photographic photographed and its resulting image. Isolde so-called king lists. Similar to Borgatti, Geary images, their mobility across time, place, Brielmaier’s essay, “Mombasa on Display: Pho- also addresses how photographic portraiture and medium, and their various receptions tography and the Formation of an Urban Public affected later renderings of people that empha- throughout West, Central, and East Africa. from the 1940s Onward,” echoes previous rev- sized individual physical likeness. The first of the book’s three thematic sec- elations by scholars writing on portrait studio Compiled for academic readers rather than tions, entitled “Exchange,” (re)considers the photography in Africa that urban clients “used the general public, Portraiture and Photogra- relationships between photographers and their portrait photography … to imagine, negotiate phy in Africa is an essential volume for those subjects while exploring the ways in which the and produce new urban subjectivities.” She con- studying the histories of photography. Con- circulation of images have connected individ- tinues, “Together with their photographers they sidering the field’s particular concern with the uals across borders, communities, and genera- engaged in a creative and collaborative process ways in which photography has constructed tions. In his case study of Francis W. Joaque, drawing upon diverse elements … in order to and shaped subjectivities, Peffer and Camer- Jürg Schneider broadens our purview of nine- create idealized images of themselves” (pp. 253– on’s edited publication is a necessary reference teenth century West African studio portrait 55). Although such insights are not necessarily for curators seeking to situate their exhibi- photography through the writings of Arjun revelatory, her focus on Mombasa is a welcome tions within compelling discourses. In their Appadurai, Paul Gilroy, and others. Presenting contribution to a burgeoning field that has pri- interrogation of established photographic his- a reading of these early photographs through marily highlighted photographers and photo- tories the book’s thirteen contributors impor- a theoretical framework of an “Atlantic visu- graphic histories in South and West Africa. tantly offer readings of the medium through a alscape,” Schneider ultimately foregrounds The third and final section of the book, enti- lens of cultural specificity while putting forth the roles cartes-de-visite played as a form of tled “Traditions,” comprises essays that explore innovative theoretical approaches to the study cultural currency in potentially reterritorializ- how photography’s technological innovations of portraiture. These authors’ insights will ing social relationships on the global stage. In have altered African visual traditions and undoubtedly prove generative to professors her extensively researched essay, Érika Nimis how these historic visual cultures have in turn and curators alike while also sparking inter- writes of a Yoruba aesthetics of studio portrait influenced the production of photographic est in a new generation of scholars and artists photography and its proliferation throughout portraits. In her contribution, Jean Borgatti who critically engage with the medium. Francophone West Africa. Undoubtedly one of looks to portraiture in traditional African the most layered and soundly structured chap- contexts as sites where one’s presence was Jessica Williams holds a master’s degree in ters in the book, Nimis’s contribution is ripe evoked and not merely simulated. She thus modern and contemporary African art history with intriguing insights and new potential ave- introduces various strategies in the realm of from the University of Maryland and is currently nues of research that will most assuredly spur portraiture for asserting identity and convey- a doctoral student at Harvard University, where the curiosity of other scholars. In “The Field- ing character, noting that not all approaches she researches Africa’s photographic histories. worker and the Portrait: The Social Relations to portraiture on the continent are set on con- [email protected] of Photography,” Elisabeth Cameron offers a veying representational or physical likenesses. refreshing self-reflective examination of her Building onward, Borgatti ultimately suggests Notes use of photography in Kabompo in northwest- that photography in Africa has stimulated a 1 Strother’s exploration of the reasons one might ern Zambia as she considers how the portraits shift within African traditions of portraiture be averse to being photographed are very intriguing. she made as gifts for those with whom she from non-representational to representational One such example she includes stems from the various worked and lived “circulated throughout the forms. Candace Keller’s essay, “Visual Gri- uses of blown powders in Central Pende society in the community as a currency of identity” (p. 164). ots: Identity, Aesthetics, and the Social Roles 1910s–1930s (in rituals to protect one against war, in In discussing how the particular poses and of Portrait Photographers in Mali,” serves as newly established masquerades, etc.) and the contem- outfits chosen by sitters for their “snaps” echo one of the book’s strongest chapters in terms porary use of rice powder by portrait photographers both rural sensibilities particular to specific of its theoretical structure and sound use of on their subjects to smooth the look of one’s skin and potentially make it “easier to photograph the features localities and broader urban aspirations, Cam- visual analysis. Though the photographers she of the face by lightening the complexion” (pp. 193–94). eron successfully integrates her own personal examines (Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta) Of these connections, Strother writes that the use of narrative with the stories, queries, and state- are hardly new to the discourse of African powder by a photographer in this community during ments of those she imaged. photographic histories, her use of a local theo- this particular time “could easily have triggered alarm” Cameron’s essay nicely transitions into the retical system (examining the photographs of (p. 194). “It was not the image, nor the technology, but the book’s second section, entitled “Social Lives,” these two “visual griots” through the concepts makeup that provoked,” Strother writes (p. 194, emphasis original). in which Zoë Strother brilliantly tackles the of fadenya and badenya) is an intriguing and

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