Promoting African Art
5
Anthropos 92.1997
and complexity which is so handsomely produced,
numerous little slips appear, some of which should
have been noticed by any editor. I provide two
examples to illustrate this. First, in some sections
dates are given (where relevant) as B.C. and A.D.,
but in others as B.P. (before present). This second
method is 2,000 years out of synchronization with
the other. This second system, or perhaps B.C.E.,
and C.E. (before common era and common era)
would have been more cross-culturally acceptable
for a catalogue presumably aimed at African and
often Muslim as well as Western readers. Second,
on the map of West Africa and the Guinea coast
(326) Asante is indicated as a kingdom but not
Yoruba, Nupe, Hausa, or some others which are
indicated as having kingdoms in the text or else
where. Benin is not indicated as either a king
dom or ethnic entity even though works from
Benin feature prominently not only in the text
and illustrations but on the very front-cover of
the volume. Benin City is shown on the map as
a modern geographical point in Nigeria, but so
also should Benin kingdom (or the associated Edo
or Bini people) figure prominently as some sort
of monarchical, ethnic entity (Oguibe 1996 and
Sieber 1996 cite other errors).
Finally, some of the commentators have bad
writing habits of stating the unnecessary, especial
ly in cases of prehistoric materials, and indulging
in unwarranted speculation. Why write “needless
to say” (for then why say it?) or describe what
is already illustrated: “the neck of the vase is
decorated with seven horizontal bands” (60)? Why
assert that a 3500 B.C.E. torso “was made by a
female potter at the dawn of the Gerzean age who
knew her craft and her sex, as well as the mores
of her time” (55)? Nor are readers truly informed
by texts larded with “may have been,” “may,”
“perhaps,” “it is entirely possible,” “probably,”
“might,” and “could”.
Having outlined the catalogue’s main features,
I now turn to the more complex and controversial
scholarly and political issues involved in both it
and the exhibit. Here I return to some details
of the catalogue, but mainly as these illustrate
my social analysis. These social issues hinge on
the provocative and insightful statements made by
Appiah. He is perceptive in pointing out that the
issues of defining Africa and art are both deeply
problematical. How these problems are addressed
defines the catalogue and exhibit in important
and at times controversial ways. In the catalogue
these issues involve African art, but these actually
involve all aspects of how we define and write
African scholarly studies.
Art and Africa
a) Art as Something Fine, as High Culture
The assortment of artefacts in this exhibit extends
the definition of art beyond what is usually accept
ed by some who teach and study fine art or attend
art museums. In addition to showing sculpture and
a very few paintings (some Egyptian fragments
and some San works on stone), the curator has
included a great many objects that at best would
be described as crafts or decorative arts: jewel
lery, textiles, furniture, household utensils, and
weapons. Phillips remarks that the show aimes at
challenging what constitutes “high” and “low” art
(.RA Magazine 1995: 60). This is consistent with
at least one distinguished historian of African art
who has repeatedly criticized the neglect of such
materials (Sieber 1971, 1980).
Of course, in many of the largest and greatest
museums, such as the Louvre, the Hermitage, and
the Metropolitan, such objects are now exhibited
along with painting and sculpture but usually in
separate galleries. Some objects in the present
show might be described as technologically infe
rior or primitive, and this might disqualify them
from close company with fine art. Furthermore, the
curator has included prehistoric objects, including
a stone core from the earliest stages of human
habitation in east Africa, over a million years ago,
and numerous stone objects many thousands of
years old from eastern, southern, western, Sahel
ian, and northern Africa. Indeed, a third of the
objects from ancient Egypt and Nubia are not the
objects of great art from the old, middle, and new
kingdoms of pharaonic Egypt which one might
expect, but instead are far simpler, even cruder
objects from neolithic and predynastic periods.
Phillips observes: “Visitors familiar with the dis
play of Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum
may be surprised that many of the works are not
the traditional masterpieces of pharaonic art” {RA
Magazine 1995: 59). This is because .. there is
an emphasis in the Royal Academy selection on
ceramics, carved ivory, and wooden sculpture -
media that links {sic) Egypt in the main stream of
African art” (59). Phillips also claims that his is a
more “intimate” and “humanistic” view of Egypt
(60). Throughout the catalogue (and exhibit), the
unexpected and previously overlooked often seem
emphasized, even to the point of peculiarity. In
any case, the meaning of art is here extended to
artifice involving a very wide range of objects
in both time and place so as to underscore the
universal and long history of human endeavours