The Essential Art of African Textiles Design Without End

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 capture 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 ofT 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 aesthetic 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,

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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 different warp arrangement. The resulting vertical stripes present rhythms of repetition that are not immediately discernable. To further 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.

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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. An interna- is a twenty-first century master intensely aware of Africa’s art his- tionally acclaimed artist, he was among Africa’s first contempo- torical traditions who infuses them with new life and meaning. rary artists to be featured at the Venice Biennale, in 1990.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 90 11/21/2008 11:08:12 AM (opposite) 2 El Anatsui (b.1944, Ghanaian) Between Earth and Heaven (2006) Aluminum, copper wire; 220.3cm x 325.1cm (86¾" x 128") The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Fred M. and Rita Richman, Noah-Sadie K. Wachtel Foundation Inc., David and Holly Ross, Doreen and Gilbert Bassin Family Foun- dation and William B. Goldstein Gifts, 2007 (2007.96)

In this work, the classic kente textile tradition produced by Asante and Ewe weavers has been subjected to a complete transforma- tion and yet is recognizable in vestigial form. Through the animated surface of a sculptural idiom Anatsui calls attention to the dynamism of Ghanaian textiles, whose shimmering lumi- nosity, dense composition, and immense rippling presence viscerally engage the viewer

(this page) 3 Atta Kwami (b. 1956, Ghanaian) Juapong (2006) Relief print on paper; 35.6cm x 24.9cm (14" x 9¾") The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg Fund, in honor of Colta Ives, 2008 (2008.293.1)

This print is one of series named after Ewe towns in Ghana’s Volta Region, where weaving is practiced and the artist was raised. The titles of the series—“Kpong,” “Kpetoe,” “Vane,” “Tsito,” and “Juapong”—were selected for their association with textile design as well as their sonorous musical quality.

Atta Kwami (b. 1956, Ghanaian) visual detail as one might isolate a musical chord or interlude. Over time, I have been better able to embody those aspects of my Atta Kwami has combined his work as a fine artist with his everyday life which have the greatest significance: kiosks, commercial desire to chronicle Ghanaian art history. The subject of his soon (sign) painting, woven textiles, Ghanaian music (Koo Nimo) and to be published doctoral thesis is Kumasi Painting 1951–2007. His jazz, all of which allow for serial composition in strips, stripes, grids. mother, Grace Salome Kwami, a gifted artist and educator, served I have focused on color as my subject matter, perhaps taking me back as a critical formative influence. A sculptor, weaver, and painter, to where I started with the perception of my mother’s paints and tex- she submitted watercolors and gouaches to Ghanaian textile tiles, but my art also resonates, I have seen, with the wider world of manufacturers in the 1960s. At the prestigious Achimota School, color formalist painters, such as Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Sean Atta Kwami studied weaving, among other art subjects, with an Scully, and Ellsworth Kelly (Kumasi, January 2008). Ewe master. Kwami holds degrees in painting and art history Atta Kwami draws inspiration from the sensory stimuli of from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology his adopted urban environment of Kumasi, the cultural capital (KNUST) in Kumasi, the Royal College of Art in London, and of the Asante region. His abstract imagery is a synthesis of ele- The Open University, Milton Keynes, in the UK, and a diploma ments: pulsating musical rhythms, the city’s dynamic entrepre- from the Royal College of Art, London. For over twenty years he neurial landscape, and the vibrant designs and intense colors was senior lecturer of painting and printmaking at KNUST. His of regional textile traditions. While he has regularly produced work is exhibited internationally and he has served as a major large-scale installation works, he imbues meaning into the small catalyst for bringing together Ghana’s fine arts community.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 91 11/21/2008 11:08:25 AM 4 Arkilla kereka interior hanging Niger, Tillaberi; Fulani peoples First half of the 20th century Wool, cotton, natural dye; warp 411.5cm, weft 127cm (13' 6" x 50") The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Labelle Prussin, 1997 (1997.446.1) Provenance: Purchased by Labelle Prussin from a Hausa trader in Accra, Ghana in 1971

Cloths of this grandeur served as tent dividers and marriage-bed hangings. Such creations were the most costly textiles produced in the Niger Bend region and were almost always woven on com- mission. Their aesthetic reflects the cosmopolitan engagement of weavers south of the Sahara with the formal vocabulary of North African textile traditions. Berber women weave wool textiles for clothing on a wide vertical loom thought to be of pre-Arabic origin, and the closely related geometric designs they produce occur in bands across the weft. In the Western Sudan, however, men weave wool textiles on double-heddle looms, and the long narrow fabric that is produced is cut into strips that are stitched together to form the completed cloth. In order to reproduce the effect of the North African cloths through this different technical process, the weaver had to calculate accurately the distance between motifs so that they would match up once the strips were aligned. With its designs exactly repeated and perfectly synchronized, the resulting cloth becomes a flawless continuum of dense pattern.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 92 11/21/2008 11:08:45 AM 5 Seydou Keïta (1921(?)–2001, Malian) Untitled portrait [Seated Woman with Chevron Print Dress] (1956, print 1997) Gelatin silver print; 60.96cm x 50.8cm (24" x 20") The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Joseph and Ceil Mazer Foundation Inc. Gift, 1997 (1997.364)

The leaf-patterned cloth backdrop was used by Keïta for sittings throughout 1956. Its striking juxtaposi- tion with the sitter’s printed dress plays her aesthetic against the photographer’s pictorial conceit.

Seydou Keïta (1921(?)–2001, Malian) … my first backdrop was my bedspread. After that, I changed the Despite his restricted palette, textiles dominate as vibrant formal backdrop every two or three years: this is how I can now establish the elements. These include the various fabric backdrops he selected dates of the negatives … Sometimes the backdrop went well with the as well as the personal sense of style evident in the fashions worn clothes, particularly for the women (Bamako, August 1994). by the female sitters. In combination, these lively contrasting patterns create a distinctive and dynamic visual tension. The studio photographer Seydou Keïta was an eloquent chroni- According to Keïta, the qualities evident in his work that cler of the aspirations of a new urban elite in Mali’s capital during attracted his clientele were his emphasis on capturing crisp the 1940s and ‘50s. During this period of immense economic and detail, sharpness and clarity of line, and masterfully calibrated demographic growth, the population more than doubled. In this composition. These commissioned portraits, carefully calculated context, he was one of a number of self-taught individuals who to reflect the cosmopolitanism of their subjects, were originally launched businesses as commercial portrait photographers in intended for intimate viewing in their subjects’ homes. Keïta Bamako. Beginning in 1948 his studio was situated at the heart of closed his studio in the early 1960s when he was called upon to the city, not far from the train station, the large market (le Marché serve the newly independent Malian state as official government Rose), and the cinema (Soudan Ciné). The élan and aesthetic photographer. In the 1990s large-format prints were produced appeal of Keïta’s work reflects his gifts in choreographing misea en from the original negatives in Paris. The names of the individu- scène that ideally captured his subjects’ individual character with als immortalized in these images are for the most part lost, as elegance and composure. Keïta shot in black and white and devel- Keïta’s archives of his negatives did not record the identities of oped his own 13cm x 18cm negatives as prints of the same size. the thousands of clients who passed through his studio.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 93 11/21/2008 11:08:48 AM 6 Malick Sidibé (b. 1936, Malian) Untitled [Portrait of a Woman Standing Before a Striped Background] (1979) Gelatin silver print; 14cm x 8.9cm (5½" x 3½") The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Nancy Lane Gift, 2003 (2003.160)

The formal tension that is the focus of this portrait is the layering of the striped cloth of the studio backdrop with those worn by the subjects. The design of the woman’s wax print that unfolds in vertical columns the length of her skirt echoes and contrasts with the controlled structure of her environment.

Malick Sidibé (b. 1936, Malian) In the studio I liked working on composition. The photographer’s between portrait photography and event-driven coverage of the relationship with his subject happens through touch. Arranging way the youth of Bamako spent their leisure time. the person, finding the right profile, the right lighting to highlight The appeal of this fresh and energetic subject matter led to his their features, bring out the beauty in their bodies … I’d find posi- tireless pursuit of documenting social gatherings, ranging from tions and postures that suited each person, I had my own tactics the club scene animated by rock-and-roll and soul to excursions (Bamako, 1998). down the Niger. His images reflect the sheer joie de vivre and insouciance of their protagonists during this period of Africa’s Malick Sidibé’s photography uniquely captured the youthful transition to modernity in the 1960s and ‘70s. Whether he was exuberance of post-Independence Malian society. At an early in the studio or at a dance, his keen eye for spontaneity and for age his natural talent for drawing was identified, and his artis- imaginative clothes and attitudes afford his imagery originality tic education began in 1952 at the Maison des Artisans Souda- and a distinctive style. While his formative attachment was to nais in Bamako. He subsequently transferred that sensibility for black-and-white photography, in recent years he has worked in representing the world around him to developing a command both black-and-white and color for the French fashion maga- of the photographic medium by observing the practice of the zines Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Double. Sidibé received the French studio photographer Gérard Guillot. Sidibé opened his Hasselblad Award for Photography in 2003, the Venice Bien- own studio in the Bagadadji district of Bamako in 1962. His own nale’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement award in 2007, and photographic record is distinctive, however, for his movement the ICP Infinity Award for lifetime achievement in 2008.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 94 11/21/2008 11:09:02 AM 7 Adinkra ceremonial wrapper In Akan society, adinkra cloth underscores the square a single abstract or representational motif is Ghana, Brong-Ahafo region, Mim village; Akan relationship between the living and ancestors, the rendered with a stamp. More than fifty-three of these peoples, Asante group present and the future, concerns of the moment and named visual motifs, imbued with historical, cultural, First quarter of the 20th century those of the hereafter. Worn wrapped around the and mystical significance, have been recorded. The Cotton, indigo dye, wax; warp 232cm, weft 112cm body like a toga to mark various occasions ranging author of a particular cloth selects which ones will be (91½"x 44¼") from funerals to festive occasions, their compositions depicted and how they will be arranged across the Lent by The British Museum, London (Af1935,1005.2) are conceived of as visual texts. Once the founda- pictorial field. This example features at least thirteen Provenance: Purchased by A. F. Kerr in the village tional cloth has been selected, its surface is systemati- distinct signs ranging from a concentric circle, consid- of Mim, Brong-Ahafo region, Ghana in March 1934. cally subdivided into a grid through the application ered to be of paramount importance among designs, Presented by Kerr to the British Museum in 1935 of a dark pigment, prepared from tree bark and to double ram’s horns associated with leadership, iron slag, with a comb-like instrument. Within each strength, and humility.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 95 11/21/2008 11:09:26 AM 8 Grace Ndiritu (b. 1976, British) The Nightingale (2003) Video; 7 minutes 01 second Collection of the artist

In this work the manipulation of a textile affords the individual portrayed with a spectrum of possibilities that range from concealing her presence to actively transforming her identity. In an opening sequence the undulating, shifting, and rippling movements of the fabric cause it to appear to be an independently animate entity.

Grace Ndiritu (b. 1976, British) textile art at the Winchester School of Art in the UK, she was … seeing the Royal Academy exhibition “Matisse: The Fabric of never interested in designing fabrics. Instead she came to exploit Dreams His Art and His Textiles” reaffirmed the similarity of our textiles as a meaningful vehicle for creative expression following working process … we share the ritual of assembling textiles and journeys of self-discovery extending from the Himalayas to Ice- setting up the studio with fabrics as a background to galvanize our land and from India to Mali. During those nomadic explorations artistic practice. Matisse understands and appreciates the beauty she derived a basic level of personal security from a simple scarf and simplicity of working with textiles. The hallucinogenic proper- that makes its appearance in her video The Nightingale. ties of overlapping patterns shift and swell in his paintings, override Raised and based in Britain while of Kenyan heritage, Ndiritu’s perspective and divorce shape from color. His paintings appear to experience has instilled in her a lack of affiliation with any one expand the viewer’s eye and mind … By wrapping my body within place and a belief in the importance of obtaining an awareness of textiles I extend Matisse’s methodology of transforming both the as broad a spectrum of experiences as possible. Her experiences figure and patterns into a single pictorial plane. By loading pat- outside the West have led her to reflect on the way that art else- terns upon patterns … I also create and control tensions with the where is more seamlessly a part of every-day life, as in the way fabrics that provoke a transcendental experience (London, 2005). she found textiles to be integrated into Malian society. In drawing from that tradition, she has sought to manipulate textiles as Grace Ndiritu boldly relies on her own physical presence as vehicles for eliciting emotional responses and as objects of aes- the central agent of her evocative artistry. Her “handcrafted vid- thetic contemplation in concert with the body. Among Ndiritu’s eos” are highly personal and introspective solo performances in international presentations of her work has been a solo exhibi- front of a camera fixed on a tripod. Although Ndiritu studied tion at the 2005 Venice Biennale.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 96 11/21/2008 11:09:52 AM 9 Sokari Douglas Camp, CBE (b. 1958, British) Nigerian Woman Shopping (1990) Steel; 180cm x 66cm x 83cm (71" x 26" x 32¾") Lent by Packman Lucus Collection, London

This faceless woman would be invisible were it not for the bold stars and crescents of the cloth wrapped around her. The design deliberately evokes a popular Dutch wax print whose star-and-crescent- moon pattern, produced in bold yellow and blue, derived from Arab sources and is now rendered for a West African clientele by the Dutch textile company Vlisco.

Sokari Douglas Camp, CBE (b. 1958, British) Kalabari culture revolves around cloth, especially for women. Our heirlooms are cloth. A key concern is how much important cloth you have to clothe the family for big occasions, funerals, births, marriages. We lay cloth out for wakes, covering rooms, beds, and even the deceased. When the body is buried a display of the cloth used for the wake is exhibited for a week with coral and jewelry. As a girl I graduated from beads to wearing a dress and subsequently additional cloths over time. The way the cloth is wrapped around one’s body and the height of it depended on one’s age and importance. So I was always very conscious of fabric. Some cloths (prints) can not be worn in some areas of my town during important occasions. As an artist I like figures that are clothed … The different styles of clothing and textiles in Nigeria and Europe [as well as] the fabrics that cross cultures have been features in my work … The tactile qualities in fabrics and the way the material is worn is fasci- nating to me (London 2007).

Trained at the Royal College of Art and working in the UK, Sokari Douglas Camp is keenly engaged with the cultural life of the Kalabari people of Nige- ria, where she spent her early childhood. Douglas Camp has regularly revisited the scene of her formative years and made it a major subject of her artistic explorations. As a female artist who expresses herself in the physically demanding medium of welded metals, Douglas Camp observed in Buguma festivals or Brixton markets. Best known occupies a unique place. Her expansive sculptural portrayals dis- for her evocations of regional masquerade festivals, her work has till their subjects’ physicality to essential features. These hollowed responded to events that have unfolded in the Niger Delta that representations omit certain aspects of the body and exactingly are of universal import. These have included the tragic execution define others through cutting out two-dimensional designs from of the author Ken Saro Wiwa, the ecological disasters that have sheets of metal. Although Douglas Camp’s work is predominantly resulted from oil exploitation in the Niger Delta, and the legacy figurative in nature, it emphasizes the abstract forms of negative of the slave trade. Many of the female subjects alluded to in her space so that blouses, textile wrappers, and tied headgear are ren- sculptures reflect the Kalabari aesthetic practice of widening the dered elegantly as openwork shells. In doing so she endows these lower body through wrapping it in multiple layers of cloth. Both solid armatures with a whimsical lightness and grace. She has also the considerable heft of a substantial corporeal being and the lav- sought to infuse sculpture with a sense of vitality through evoking ish use of costly textiles are favored for their identification with movement both by introducing kinetic features and underscoring prosperity and abundance. Douglas Camp further insists on the the performative and active dimension of her subjects. inherent aesthetic qualities of textiles by highlighting their deco- Douglas Camp moves easily between the Niger Delta and rative patterns and suggesting their flowing movements in the London so that her oeuvre visually summons individuals she has most inflexible of media.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 97 11/21/2008 11:10:06 AM 10 Wrapper Senegal Second half of the 19th century Cotton, indigo dye; 152cm x 224cm (60" x L. 88¼") Lent by The British Museum, London (Af1934,0307.246) Provenance: Collected in West Africa between 1880–1900 by Charles Beving, Sr.

At first glance this cloth, composed of conjoined vertical units, appears to be an example of strip- weaving. This is, however, an illusion. Its author instead reproduced the look of that familiar structure by an entirely different creative process. The point of departure was an imported, commercially manufactured fine cotton plain weave. That cloth was torn into fifteen strips that were individually stitched with intricate patterns and immersed in indigo dye. Once the patterning of the individual units of fabric was complete the strips were stitched together into a single panel. In planning this composition and ingenious undertaking, the artist has quoted and transposed the widespread paradigm of Yinka Shonibare, MBE (b. 1962, British) strip constructed design as a purely aesthetic In 1990 I developed another way of questioning ideas about cul- expression. tural authenticity. I started to use “African” fabric purchased from Brixton Market in my work. Batik, which is commonly known as “African” fabric, has its origins in Indonesia and is industrially Rachid Koraïchi (b. 1947, Algerian) produced in Holland and Manchester for export to Africa, where Blue, a supraterrestrial color, is the path of the infinite. It expresses it is made into traditional dress. The adoption of the fabric, par- detachment from the values of the world (Paris, 2008). ticularly in West Africa, has led to the development of local indus- tries which also manufacture fabrics … In my own practice, I have Born in Algeria, based in Paris, and traveling continually to used the fabrics as a metaphor for challenging various notions of Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt, Rachid Koraïchi’s ambitious artistic authenticity both in art and identity (London, 1996). endeavors are catalysts for journeys of discovery. These pilgrim- ages, punctuated by multimedia installations, retrace the paths Yinka Shonibare’s use of industrially manufactured “Dutch taken by venerated Sufi mystics. Trained at Algeria’s École des wax prints” in his work reflects on the most recent chapter of Beaux-Arts, the Institut d’Urbanisme de l’Académie de Paris, the history of trade between Africa and the West, the nature of and both the École des Beaux-Arts and École des Arts Décoratifs that relationship, and assumptions about creativity and identity. in Paris, Koraïchi’s identity is centered on his heritage of Sufism, Shonibare’s sharp insights into this history reflect his own per- which informs his emphasis on the inseparability of aesthetics sonal trajectory of being born in England to Nigerian parents, and metaphysics. The process of both developing these demand- spending formative years of his youth in Lagos, and pursuing ing meditations and experiencing them may be likened to the his vocation as an artist in Britain. With thoughtful ingenuity, tariqa or way of Sufi mysticism through which one strives to visual poetry, satirical humor, and aesthetic panache his work perpetually deepen understanding in quest of grace. subverts misconceptions about racial, class, and cultural identity Through making manifest the writings of exemplary mystics, and distinctions between high and low art. Trained as a painter Koraïchi seeks to capture an idea of transcendence. He never liter- and a graduate of Goldsmith’s College of the University of Lon- ally transcribes sacred texts but rather expressively translates them don, Shonibare has developed his ideas in a variety of media that into his own personal script, which combines the written word in include installation art, photography, and film. In each of these, Islamic calligraphy, characters that originate in pre-Islamic Ber- he has drawn upon cloth as a prominent formal element that ber and Tuareg tradition, magical squares, and talismanic num- suggests to the viewer that things are not what they may appear bers. Despite his focus on the power of esoteric signs, Koraïchi’s to be at first glance. His use of this complex signifier has ranged works are invariably multi-faceted, combining different kinds of from austerely stretching it as a canvas to lavish deployment in media. These projects seek to highlight the cosmopolitan charac- theatrical tableaux that foil established icons of Western culture. ter of the Mediterranean world going back to the medieval period In 2004 Shonibare was nominated for the Turner Prize and through reviving the legacy of specialized artisans. He executes in 2005 was awarded the title Member of the British Empire in these in collaboration with individuals trained in a region’s clas- recognition of his service to the nation. Most recently his pro- sical traditions, such as weavers and dyers who produce elements posal for a public sculpture for the Fourth Plinth site in London’s of his monumental, often site-specific creations under his supervi- Trafalgar Square was selected and in Fall 2008 his work was the sion. Koraïchi’s expansive vision reignites complex intercultural focus of a mid-career retrospective organized by the Museum networks, resides in major cultural institutions, and has been rec- of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia and traveling to the ognized in international exhibitions including both the 47th and Brooklyn Museum, New York. 49th Venice Biennales.

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10A17_AMM401_p88-99.indd 98 11/21/2008 11:10:17 AM 11 Yinka Shonibare, MBE (b. 1962, British) 100 Years (2000) Emulsion, acrylic on Dutch wax printed cotton textile, painted wood; 248.9cm x 850.9 cm (98" x 335"); 100 panels each: 30cm x 30cm (11¾" x W. 11¾") Lent by Ninah and Michael Lynne, New York

This installation takes the form of a monumental sampler of one hundred panels of wax prints, stretched as canvases, that the artist purchased in Brix- ton, South London, and which Vlisco manufactured in Hel- mond, Holland, for “African” consumers. They all are altered by painterly interventions that obliterate their designs. The visual intensity of this dense tableau of contrasting patterns and their underlying conceptual order challenges the idea of the grid in Modernism and invites association with the expansive scope, dynamism, and structure of woven and patterned West African textiles.

12 Rachid Koraïchi (b. 1947, Algerian) 7 Variations on Indigo (2002) Serigraphy on Aleppo silk, ink, and paint; each banner: 320cm x 48cm (126" x 18¾") Collection of the artist

In these elements from a larger installation, the artist fore- grounds indigo, the ubiquitous deep blue dye obtained from various plants that has been used in virtually every culture. He underscores its importance in trade networks between the northern and sub-Saharan regions of the continent and the world at large.

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