Ken Wiwa, son of a Nigerian political activist executed by the regime in 1995, recently wrote, “What Africa really needs more than ever are stories that contradict the prevailing and reductive narratives of the continent.” There are myriad realities in the many nations that make up the continent -- les Afriques, as the French aptly say -- but we in the West seldom hear about anything but what Sir Bob Geldof of Live 8 calls the “pornography of African poverty.”
Which is one reason why the exhibit “Arts of Africa” at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco is so important. The artists, living and dead, whose works -- more than 350 -- appear in this panoramic and ambitious show covering 7,000 years of African art, have created narratives that compel viewers to rethink (or start thinking about) the creative history of the peoples of Africa.
On display through September 4, “Arts of Africa” is divided into two major parts. The first (and worth the trip alone) encompasses “traditional” art, a term curator Ezio Bassani uses “for brevity, but to some extent also out of laziness,” stretching from the neolithic to the mid-20th century, when World War II and the subsequent drive for independence (not to mention increasing urbanization, globalization and the fading of traditions) forever changed life in Africa. The second comprises the works of 30 contemporary African artists, selected from the collection of Jean Pigozzi by André Magnin (who is also the artistic director and curator of the Italian businessman's Contemporary African Art Collection, or CAAC). Bridging them is a concise selection of works by early 20th-century artists who recognized in African art new solutions to old problems: Derain, Gaugin, Matisse, Leger, and Picasso, to name a few.
The 250 traditional pieces, culled from scores of private collections and museums in Africa and Europe, form an exceptional assemblage and a tribute to Bassani, who said the hardest part of his job “was to narrow the choices.” The 72-year-old Italian professor is one of the deans of African-art scholarship, having organized and contributed to scores of exhibits throughout the world and guided collectors private and public. “He knows exactly where every important piece is,” Magnin noted, “and he has made many friends over the years. You will never see an exhibit like this again.” To which the modest Bassani replied only, “It comes from being old.”
Old -- and smart, passionate, and intensely involved. Much of the art on display at the Grimaldi Forum is typically not available; many pieces come from museums and private collectors who in the past have shied away from lending.
Here, for instance, is a small, harmonious stone figure, manlike, dating to the first quarter of the fifth millennium B.C. and found in Kadruka Cemetery 21 in Sudan. (Writes Bassani, “This is art which is anything but primitive!”) A fifth-century B.C. Nok terra cotta -- an elongated head with triangular eyes, wide, dilated nostrils, and gaping mouth -- serves as a haunting welcoming figure to the exhibit. Usually it resides in the National Museum in Lagos.
(According to the handsome catalog, the Nok culture is the earliest known terra-cotta tradition in the sub-Saharan. Thanks to recent technological advances in thermo-luminescent and radiocarbon dating, the sculptures are now dated from 900 B.C. to 1100 A.D. However, their intense beauty and antiquity have led to high prices and rapacious demand: The Red List of threatened world heritage items, published by the International Council of Museums, or ICOM, notes that 1,000 Nok sculptures have been illegally exhumed and exported, despite international conventions.)
Here, too, are magnificent sculptures of Ife, created between the 11th and 15th centuries A.D., including the stunning head of the first oni (king) of Ife, made of pure copper. Working with copper requires a high degree of expertise and advanced technology, Bassani explained, “so no one really knows how the artist did this.” So “classical” is the graceful figure that the German scholar Leo Frobenius at first refused to credit the African artist and instead put the authorship to a Greek artist from the lost continent of Atlantis!
It is just such dismissive and biased attitudes that Bassani has sought to correct and change. Too often, he argues, Westerners have only considered these works “artifacts” and described great sculptures -- the bright stars of the African-art firmament -- as fetishes and talismans. “This was not magic for them,” he said. “It was religion.” He hopes that, through this and other shows, the public will look at the history of African art and respond to the ingenuity and genius of African artists.
No doubt they will. Among the collectors and museum curators who crowded the Grimaldi Forum the night Monaco's Prince Albert opened the exhibit was Stéphane Matin, president of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (the museum devoted to indigenous arts of Africa, America, Asia, and Oceana will open officially early next year). Matin was entranced by a Batcham, a monumental wooden mask from the small states of Balmileke in Cameroon, now in a private collection. There are, he said, “perhaps 10, maybe 12 in existence; they're so incredibly fragile.”
Later, I walked through the galleries with Romuald Hazoumé, one of the 30 artists whose work is represented in the contemporary Pigozzi collection. I asked him what most impressed him about Bassani's exhibit. Because Hazoumé has created modern masks, I thought he might point to works from Kwele, Dan, or Lega cultures. Instead, he walked immediately to the sign identifying a bronze head of Queen Mother, dating to the early 16th century: “It says ‘Edo artist, Nigeria (Benin).' They write: Artist. That's great, wonderful. It means that Westerners who come here will recognize that we have had artists before, and -- with the contemporary show -- that we are still here. Of course, it is exciting to see works I would never see otherwise; we respect this tremendous heritage. But more than that, it is the recognition of these artists.”
Hazoumé, who grew up in Benin in a Catholic family, is still interested in the Vodun society of his Yoruba forbears, an interest evident in an exuberant series of masks cut from plastic containers of gasoline, bleach, and detergent. One, with a wild blond mane, is named Claudia (as in Schiffer); another, fashioned out of an old flip-flop, is an announcer on a burned-out TV.
“A lot of Western rubbish is sent to Africa,” said Hazoumé with a wicked grin. “Our people want to be modern. Now, I'm sending it back.” Trade with the West, Hazoumé makes clear, has been out of balance since the triangle trade shipped Africans as slaves to the Americas, and continues to have disastrous consequences. In his video “Roulette,” Benin citizens transport unwieldy cargoes of gas by motorcycle and bicycle -- the only way most can deliver fuel in the oil-rich country. Motorcycles travel at night without headlights (“to save money”); by day, Hazoumé focuses on the charred remains. “Every day, people die in accidents,” he says. “These are real bombs.”
Most of the artists in the Pigozzi collection still live in Africa, though a number, such as Cheri Samba, already have established reputations in the West. Samba, who like James Rosenquist started out painting signs, comments on the realities of modern-day Zaire with a barbed wit. In one, Little Kadogo, a young boy dressed in military fatigues is flanked by a submachine gun and a rose; a mysterious third hand holds a pistol.
Stunning black-and-white photographs by the Malians Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé evoke Bamako of the 1950s and '60s, while Pascale (e) Marthin (e) Tayou focuses his video on the oddities of modern-day life in cities and villages.
Others peer into the future: In the chaotic city of Kinshasa, Bodys Isek Kingelez fashions utopian cityscapes, while Rigobert Nimi constructs science-fiction-like machines out of recycled materials.
Abu Bahari Mansaray deals in a dreamlike blend of optimism and engineering, creating working drawings for fantastical inventions such as the Evil Dector -- the Crucial Invention of Professor Abu. “It seeks out people who have bad thoughts,” Mansari told me. “I made this as a reaction to terrorism. The Evil Dector scans everyone – everyone -- so all people, including politicians, would be much more inclined to be good.”
Mansaray grew up in Sierra Leone, wanting to be a scientist, but couldn't for lack of funds. Instead, he made machines: a refrigerator for himself and mechanical toys and sculptures for employees of the American Embassy in Freetown. One Marine requested a gun. It didn't shoot, but a second did, and, after the local authorities heard of it, Mansari had to flee war-torn Sierra Leone in 1998 for Amsterdam, where he now lives.
Mansaray and others in the Pigozzi collection are delighted that their work will be on display in Washington, D.C. But more than that, they look forward to the day their art can be displayed in their own countries.
In fact, there is a nascent contemporary art scene in Benin: In June, the Zinsou Foundation opened a gallery devoted to contemporary African art, the first in West Africa. At the opening, its curator, Marie Cecile Zinsou, noted, “Today's art is the best metaphor for the Africa of tomorrow.” Judging from the art on display at the Grimaldi Forum, the Africa of tomorrow will be bolstered by bold ideas and dedicated creativity.
Suzanne Charlé, who writes on culture and politics for The New York Times, The Nation, and other publications, is co-editor of Indonesia in the Soeharto Years: Issues, Incidents and Illustrations, published by Lontar Foundation.
“Arts of Africa,” Grimaldi Forum, Monaco, through September 4. (The contemporary artwork from the Jean Pigozzi collection will travel on to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, where it will show from November 16 to February 26, 2006.)
