The Essential Art of African Textiles Design Without End
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Exhibition Preview The Essential Art of African Textiles Design Without End Alisa LaGamma o paint a picture of a real and present Africa in Dakar as in Bamako, Accra, or Lagos is to cap- ture their dynamic marketplaces ablaze with color. Across the continent, these living tableaus that are the epicenters of their communities are defined by a lyrical cacophony of designs and hues. The fabrics of such immense collages of humanity constitute scores of acts Tof aesthetic self-determination predicated on the rich variety of ways in which cloth has been elaborated. The very textiles that animate these human arenas are one of MICHAEL C. ROCKEFELLER WING the major commodities exchanged. Their importance as an item METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK of trade is as apparent now as it was when the earliest commercial OCTOBER 1, 2008–MaRCH 22, 2009 networks joining North Africa with regions south of the Sahara were developed in the first centuries ce. Given their portabil- THE EXHIBITION IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART ity, textiles have been the ultimate vehicle through which human BY THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION, creative ingenuity has traveled long distances. Their dissemina- FrED AND RITA RICHMAN, AND THE CEIL & tion has provided a conduit for the transfer of ideas across cul- MICHAEL C. PULITZER FOUNDATION, INC, AND tures and has been the spark to renewed creativity. WAS ORGANIZED BY THE METROPOLITAN Inherent to this medium is its capacity to seamlessly adapt to MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, IN COLLABORA- change and newly emerging social realities. Unlike so many sculp- TION WITH THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON tural forms of expression that have come to epitomize Africa’s artistic heritage in the West, textile traditions have not only per- sisted as a form of expression across the continent, they have pro- liferated. The constant renewal of regional textile genres attests to their continued relevance and fulfillment of ongoing cultural needs and desires. In their most exalted manifestations they have been conceived as immense architectural elements that enliven and define interior space or voluminous garments that envelop the body in layer upon layer of ostentatious folds. Whatever their intent, their design is fundamentally informed by the expansive template of strip-woven textiles whose composition of contigu- ous bands of design may repeat themselves or introduce variation. Beyond their graphic definition, a critical dimension of their aes- thetic impact is flowing movement. Never viewed as rigidly two- dimensional, they are responsive to wind and the human form. Despite the vitality and resilience of this idiom of expression that punctuates the experiences of every-day life as well as those of an exalted and extraordinary nature, African textiles have not received their full due in Western cultural institutions. Conversely, many contemporary artists meaningfully engaged with this heritage have harnessed its visual language in their own creations in distinct media, presented here through sculpture, 88 | african arts SPRING 2009 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar.2009.42.1.88 by guest on 01 October 2021 10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 88 11/21/2008 11:07:54 AM 1 Kente prestige cloth Ghana; Ewe peoples 19th century Cotton, silk; warp 188cm, weft 279cm (74" x 9' 2") Lent by The British Museum, London (Af1934,0307.165) Provenance: Collected in West Africa between 1880 and 1900 by Charles Beving Sr. Richly elaborated and costly kente textiles, identified with wealth and status, are the ultimate attribute of prestige in both Ewe and Asante societies. These glorious fabrics were worn as voluminous toga-like garments draped majestically around the body to mark special occasions. During the eighteenth century Asante weavers radically expanded the palette drawn upon for such creations by unraveling silks imported along the coast for their richly hued threads. In order to execute such monumental works, the very long fabric woven on a double heddle horizontal treadle loom is cut at fixed intervals to produce a series of strips that are sewn together selvage to selvage. A man’s cloth typically requires twenty-four such strips. In this example, the strips come from seven loomed lengths, each with a dif- ferent warp arrangement. The resulting ver- tical stripes present rhythms of repetition that are not immediately discernable. To fur- ther vary the pattern, the colorfully striped asymmetrical strips are set in opposite directions so that they mirror each other. installation art, photography, prints, and video. In evoking this tional and spontaneously exuberant expressions are inspired by aesthetic and visual vocabulary, they have reflected on its essen- carefully considered choreographed, disciplined, and controlled tial character as well as the underlying significance of this mate- responses to precedents. rial. Their insightful quotations of textiles associated with Africa’s The history of textiles across the continent has been a vital and experience at once enhance our appreciation of their classical richly innovative one that has contributed to the development sources of inspiration and eloquently bridge the divide between of a myriad of distinct genres of cloth and design which in turn “traditional” and “contemporary” expression. “The Essential Art have been springboards for other designs. The formidable litera- of African Textiles: Design Without End” is not a systematic sur- ture on African textiles, pioneered by Roy Sieber in a landmark vey; instead, it has been conceived as a far-ranging conversation 1972 Museum of Modern Art exhibition “African Textiles and that seeks to bridge barriers created by the characterization of Decorative Arts” and followed by the 1979 survey African Tex- art appreciated by the Western avant-garde as “fine” and one that tiles by John Picton and John Mack, provides a substantial foun- has profoundly informed expression in Africa as “applied.” The dation for an appreciation of the technical and regional practices African canvases constructed, composed, and elaborated that are that have informed these textile traditions. The examples of featured have been selected for their extraordinary artistic cali- major textile genres cited by Picton and Mack in their seminal ber and resonance at once formally and conceptually with works volume are drawn from the British Museum’s incomparable col- by the contemporary artists who reference them. At the same lection of African textiles, which is also the source of many of time these examples of “classical” genres that relate to ongoing the works featured in this presentation. This exhibition of some textile traditions were selected for their early collection dates to fifty works includes an array of Africa’s key textile genres placed underscore their longevity in relation to the highly personal idi- in dialogue with works by eight contemporary artists. Within oms of the contemporary works. Many of these now preserved the free-flowing structure of the installation, different media are in the collection of the British Museum were originally collected examined against the backdrop of extraordinarily fine textile during the nineteenth century as part of market research under- creations. Throughout those juxtapositions, the conceptual and taken by European colonial powers eager to expand the demand technical processes drawn upon to imagine and execute each of for their own industrially manufactured cloth. Most importantly, these forms of expression is examined. The oeuvre of the con- however, they are original artistic explorations of sophisticated temporary artists featured is considered from the vantage point visual paradigms. The more we examine them the more it is of their relationship to cloth and their reflections on the signifi- indisputable that what may appear as dynamically improvisa- cance of that medium. SPRING 2009 african arts | 89 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar.2009.42.1.88 by guest on 01 October 2021 10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 89 11/21/2008 11:08:04 AM EL ANATSUI (B. 1944, GHANAIAN) Over the course of a career that has spanned forty years, Anat- The scope of meaning associated with cloth is so wide I have not sui has been a pioneer in identifying and harvesting a variety of heard it more aptly and succinctly put than by Sonya Clark … that natural and man-made materials from his immediate environ- cloth is to the African what monuments are to Westerners. Indeed ment as media for radically new sculptural genres. His materi- their capacity and application to commemorate events, issues, per- als have included tropical hardwood, broken ceramic pots, grain sons, and objectives outside of themselves are so immense and fluid mortars, evaporated milk tin lids, cassava graters, driftwood, it even rubs off on other practices (2003). and most recently discarded liquor-bottle caps. In the late 1990s, Anatsui developed a form of metal textiles or tapestries. Using The son and brother of men who wove Ewe kente cloth in Gha- the bottle caps discarded by Nigerian distilleries as an experi- na’s Volta region, Anatsui has used textiles as a leitmotif in his own mental material, he sorted them by color, flattened them, and sculptural oeuvre. As a student at Kwame Nkrumah University stitched them together with copper wire. In doing so he found of Science and Technology in Kumasi (KNUST), Anatsui supple- that he had arranged them in a manner reminiscent of the struc- mented his training in Western media with careful observation ture of narrow-band textiles woven in West Africa. With this of the creative efforts of local artisans in regional idioms. Like dazzling body of work he has developed a new and highly origi- humanists in the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries who nal form of artistry with formal and conceptual links to regional carefully studied the visual language of Greek and Roman classi- traditions. Since 1975 Anatsui has lectured at the University of cism and applied it to their own particular subject matter, Anatsui Nigeria, Nsukka, where he is Professor of Sculpture.