Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art: Number 40, 2017

114 Pages·2017·10.778 MB·English

by  Chika Okeke-Agulu (Ed.)

JOURNAL OF
CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART
Okwui Enwezor, Salah M. Hassan,
and Chika Okeke-Agulu, editors
Nka contributes to the intellectual dialogue
on world art by publishing critical work in
the developing field of contemporary
African and African Diaspora art. The
journal features scholarly articles, reviews
of exhibitions, book and film reviews, and
roundtables.
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Nka
4 FROM THE EDITOR
Chika Okeke-Agulu
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART
FOUNDED 1994
6 STUART MCPHAIL HALL
FOUNDING PUBLISHER
IN MEMORIAM (1932–2014)
Okwui Enwezor
Grant Farred
EDITORS
Okwui Enwezor
Salah M. Hassan
Chika Okeke-Agulu 8 KIND OF MILES
THE MANY MOODS OF
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
STUART HALL
Sarah Adams • Carl Hazelwood • Nancy Hynes
Grant Farred
Derek Conrad Murray • Sunanda Sanyal
CONSULTING EDITORS
Rory Bester • Isolde Brielmaier • Coco Fusco CONTENTS
Kendell Geers • Michael Godby • Elizabeth Harney
Thomas Mulcaire • O. Donald Odita • Gilane Tawadros
Frank Ugiomoh NUMBER 40, 2017
MANAGING EDITOR
Clare Ulrich
16 ARS AND TECHNE
GRAPHIC DESIGN JACK WHITTEN
Mo Viele RETROSPECTIVE
Chanda Laine Carey
ADVISORY BOARD
Norbert Aas • Florence Alexis • Rashid Diab
Manthia Diawara • Elsabet Giorgis • Freida High
dele jegede • Kellie Jones • Sandra Klopper
28 RAPTUROUS BODIES
David Koloane • Bongi Dhlomo Mautloa
A CONVERSATION WITH CAMILLE NORMENT
Gerardo Mosquera • Helen Evans Ramsaran
Katya García-Antón and Antonio Cataldo
Ibrahim El Salahi • Janet Stanley • Obiora Udechukwu
Gavin Younge • Octavio Zaya
Cover: Walter Oltmann, Razor Brush Disguise, 2014. Aluminum wire, 38.6 x 33.5 x 23.6 in. Courtesy
the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo: Anthea Pokroy
Nka wishes to acknowledge support for the publication of the journal
through generous grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the
Visual Arts, the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development,
The Hague, Netherlands, and David Hammons. 44 JOURNAL OF
UNCOLLECTABLE
Andy Warhol Foundation
JOURNEYS
EDSON CHAGAS’S
FOUND NOT TAKEN
Ana Balona de Oliveira
Nka is published by Duke University Press
on behalf of Nka Publications.
56 FASHIONING MODERNITY
DRESSING THE BODY IN ETHIOPIAN
PORTRAITURE
Julia Kim Werts
68 THE STORIES THAT REVIEWS
NEED TO BE TOLD
56TH VENICE BIENNALE
Selene Wendt
102 DISGUISE
MASKS AND GLOBAL AFRICAN ART
106 EN MAS’
CARNIVAL AND
PERFORMANCE
82 SHARJAH BIENNIAL 12
ART OF THE
THE PAST
CARIBBEAN
THE PRESENT
THE POSSIBLE
Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi
108 YORUBA ART
AND LANGUAGE
90 NEGOTIATING CONTEMPORARY SEEKING THE AFRICAN
IN AFRICAN ART
AFRICAN ARCHITECTURES
AT LOUISIANA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Kristen Windmuller-Luna
From the Editor
institutions and platforms that became laboratories
of new, modernist, and eventually contemporary
African art. Also in 1958, Okeke—then a first-year
MATTERS ARISING
art student at the Nigerian College of Art, Science,
and Technology, Zaria—established his Cultural
In Memory of Uche Okeke
Centre in a room provided by his mother in their
(1933–2016) family compound in Kafanchan, Plateau State. This
center began as a small collection of artifacts and
craft objects he acquired during his travels in dif-
recently lost several giants in the field, ferent parts of Nigeria as well as works of art by his
W
among them Stuart Hall, who is memo- friends. In 1963 the center moved to Enugu, the
rialized in two commissioned essays by capital of Eastern Nigeria, and then to Nimo as the
Grant Farred in this issue, but we feel compelled Asele Institute at the onset Nigeria’s political crisis
to dedicate this issue’s editorial to another African that eventually led to the Biafran War (1967–70).
giant and visionary modernist, Uche Okeke, who Though practically moribund today, the Asele
passed away on January 5, 2016, in Awka, Anambra Institute remains one of the most important reposi-
State, Nigeria. In the Igbo tradition, the death of tories of primary documents, artifacts, and mid-
someone who had attained old age and who was twentieth-century Nigerian art within the country.
accomplished in life and work is a moment of cel- Besides setting up the Asele Institute, Okeke’s
ebration—celebration of a successful, concluded work as the head of the art program at the University
journey on the earthly realm and an opportunity to of Nigeria, Nsukka, at various times between 1971
reaffirm the ties that bind the imagined community, and 1985, was equally remarkable. As an accom-
despite the loss of a member. Indeed, Okeke’s funeral plished poet, painter, scholar, and folklorist, he
on March 4, 2016, was one such celebratory event, firmly believed that indigenous art and design had
attended by visitors from his hometown and from a lot to contribute to the development of progres-
other parts of Nigeria and beyond—the whole affair sive work in the field of modern and contemporary
supported by stakeholders in Nigerian art and cul- Nigerian/African art. He thus inaugurated a new
ture. The national and state chapters of the Society curriculum that would, within a decade, transform
of Nigerian Artists showed up in full force, as did the program into one of the most influential and
high-powered representatives from the Federal best-known art schools in postcolonial Africa. There
Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Because Okeke is perhaps a connection between Okeke’s institution
later in life had become somewhat of a legend, rarely building—at Nsukka and Nimo—and the decline of
seen, and had gained a reputation as one of the most his output as an artist after 1965, but that’s a matter
influential modern African artists of the twentieth for future research. What is indisputable is that the
century, his funeral was, in the Igbo and African work from just his first decade of practice—from his
world, as it should be. But how to ensure his lasting folk-fantastic drawings based on Igbo tales (1958)
legacy? to his groundbreaking Oja Suite and Munich Suite
Okeke, whom I met for the first time in 1992 drawings inspired by his research into Igbo Uli
when I organized his retrospective exhibition, was wall painting and body drawing (1962–63) to his
one among an extraordinary generation of Nigerian powerful canvases of 1965—guaranteed his place
and African artists who joined their compatriots in as a foremost postcolonial modernist in the class
working toward and bearing witness to the remark- of his contemporaries such as Ibrahim El Salahi,
able period of decolonization of the continent Demas Nwoko, Farid Belkahia, Gazbia Sirry,
that effectively began with the end of the Second Skunder Boghossian, Papa Ibra Tall, Kamala Ishaq,
World War. It was this generation that more or less Malangatana Ngwenya, Elimo Njau, and others.
established the grounds, through individual and Okeke’s two lifelong colleagues, Demas Nwoko
collective work, for what Frantz Fanon described and Bruce Onobrakpeya, who with him founded
in 1958 as postcolonial “national culture,” and the the now legendary Art Society while in art school at
4 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 40 • May 2017
DOI 10.1215/10757163-3885863 © 2017 by Nka Publications
Zaria, also established important art institutions: in
the late 1960s, Nwoko designed and built his multi-
purpose New Culture Studios at Ibadan to include
a drama theater as well as artists’ studios and resi-
dency apartments. In the late 1990s, Onobrakpeya
established the Bruce Onobrakpeya Foundation in
his hometown of Agbarha-Otor in the Niger Delta,
with its signal program being the annual Harmattan
Workshops for professional and amateur artists
from across Nigeria.
Uche Okeke’s death, however, compels us to
ponder the fate of ambitious, visionary projects like
the Asele Institute, which was set up by individual
artists from a generation that so much believed in
their ability to catalyze advanced national culture in
the era of political independence. It is my fervent
hope that, in collaboration with the artists and their
estates, relevant government agencies and non-
governmental bodies will draw up immediate and
long-term plans to support, sustain, and expand the
work of these institutional projects. This is the only
way to fulfill Okeke’s vision and that of others like
him, who belong to the age of Nigerian and African
independence.
Chika Okeke-Agulu
From the Editor Nka • 5
STUART MCPHAIL HALL
In Memoriam (1932–2014)
Grant Farred
Courtesy the artist and Stuart Hall Foundation. Photo: Dharmachari Mahasiddhi
6 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 40 • May 2017
DOI 10.1215/10757163-3885874 © 2017 by Nka Publications
t is difficult to take the measure of a life, to for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the
I
understand how an individual’s passing affects University of Birmingham in the English Midlands,
those with whom he or she came into contact. a position he would hold for the next decade. Out of
It is especially difficult to measure a life such as this intellectual formation emerged generations of
Stuart Hall’s because of the many ways in which his scholars who would, each in their own way across
work influenced several generations of intellectu- continents, leave a mark on cultural studies: Paul
als—anticolonials, postcolonials, postwar leftists Willis, Dick Hebdige, Pratibha Parma, Paul Gilroy,
impatient with the orthodoxies of the Old Left, Hazel Carby, and Michael Denning, to name only
newly emerging cultural studies scholars, and, by a few.
no means least, immigrants recently arrived in the After he left CCCS in 1979 Hall went on to teach
European metropolises from far-flung outposts in in another pathbreaking project, the Open Uni-
the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. versity, an institution established to make tertiary
Born in colonial Kingston, Jamaica, Hall grad- education available to those sectors of the British
uated from elite Jamaica College, whose alumni population historically excluded because of class,
included the future Jamaican prime minister, race, or gender. Hall would remain at the Open
Michael Manley. After winning a Rhodes Scholar- University until his retirement from the institu-
ship, Hall left Jamaica in 1951 to read for a degree in tion in 1997. It was during his tenure at the Open
English at Merton College, Oxford University. University that Hall developed his critiques of the
Although Hall’s work would have a significant British left, especially the Labour Party, and using
impact on the ways in which universities were the work of Antonio Gramsci, he was among the
radically reorganized from the 1960s on, he took first political theorists to recognize and understand
the decision to abandon his doctoral work in 1956 the political danger incarnated by the “authoritar-
in order to immerse himself in the construction ian populism” of Margaret Thatcher and, no less so,
of the New Left. A response to the three political Ronald Reagan.
crises of 1956—the Soviet invasion of Hungary; With the increasing dissemination of Hall’s work
Nikita Krushchev’s public denunciation of Stalin’s the influence of cultural studies and the politics it
atrocities; and the Suez Crisis, originating in Gamel- advocated and advanced gained favor in universities,
Abdel Nasser’s decision to nationalize the canal, to political organizations, and a range of civic institu-
which the British, French, and Israeli governments tions. However, Hall’s most important contribution
responded with the threat of military interven- to the work of politics—and cultural studies, the
tion—the New Left sought to reconceive politics study of race and racism, media studies, the study
in its entirety. Alongside figures such as Raymond of sexuality—was his commitment to thinking—
Williams and E. P. Thompson, Hall was instrumen- rethinking—the very presumptions of his own posi-
tal in creating a mode of thinking about politics that tions. That he maintained such a commitment over
was distinctly different from what would become a lifetime is perhaps the distinguishing mark of his
known in its decline as the Old Left, particularly work. Little wonder, then, that several generations,
those leftists who remained in the thrall of various in the wake of his passing, find themselves taking his
European communist parties. measure, each in their own way, each with the sense
Out of this period of political ferment Hall estab- that his oeuvre bequeathed a different salience to
lished himself as a leading intellectual. He was the them. In taking the measure of Stuart Hall, all those
inaugural editor of the extant journal the New Left who learned from him, who sought to work in his
Review, and together with Williams, Thompson, and spirit, are compelled to take their own measure.
Richard Hoggart, Hall became one of the enduring
voices of the cultural studies project. In 1969 Hall Grant Farred is a professor of Africana Studies at
succeeded Hoggart, the first director of the Centre Cornell University.
Farred Nka • 7
KIND OF MILES
The Many Moods
STUART HALL
of
Grant Farred
Courtesy the artist and Stuart Hall Foundation. Photo: Dharmachari Mahasiddhi
8 • Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art • 40 • May 2017
DOI 10.1215/10757163-3885885 © 2017 by Nka Publications
line from John Akomfrah’s documentary The for many jazz aficionados the greatest jazz LP ever.
A
Stuart Hall Project has stayed with me, in no Kind of Blue also gave birth to what is sometimes
small measure because it has always struck known as “modal jazz,” a form of jazz in which the
me as discordant, this analogy that Stuart Hall harmonic framework is formed by musical modes
makes between his life and that of Miles Davis. At rather than chord progressions. In the 1950s,
first glance there appears to be little that Hall and instead of giving preference to chord progressions,
Davis share, at least in terms of temperament. Miles musicians began to write their music using modal
Davis is unquestionably possessed of an artist’s sen- scales. These jazz greats included Davis, the pianists
sibility, given to exuberance—a musical genius pre- Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock, and saxophonist
senting his talents to the world, sans apology. Hall, Wayne Shorter. Some of the key pieces of modal
on the other, is a study in charm and modesty, quali- music include Davis’s Milestones, in particular
ties that did little to disguise his fierce, if sometimes “Flamenco Sketches”; Shorter’s “Footprints”; and
impish, intelligence, an intellectual whose acumen John Coltrane’s Impressions, as well as Kind of Blue.1
spanned a range of fields. And he was, of course, Ever prepared to think his music again, Miles
unyielding in his political commitment. was key to the post-bebop era, and his influence
The difference in what I am naming, perhaps provided opportunities for a new generation of
improperly, “temperament” is arguably where the jazz artists, including Hancock, no slouch at cool
divergence in regard to their approach to their work and experimentation himself; bassist Ron Carter;
both begins and ends. This discomfiture of mine can and Shorter. Out of this iteration of Miles emerged
be shown to be at once superficial—it is but a single albums such as E.S.P. (1965) and Miles Smiles (1967).
layer deep, if that—and, more important, revealing, All this, needless to say, was preparation for the next
because it compels me to address this line, to mine it, phase in the 1960s, his “electric period.”
to understand why it troubles me, to consider what At the very moment Miles was transitioning
it means for an artist such as Miles Davis to put his from one mode to another, an LP featuring his
“finger on the soul” of a thinker such as Stuart Hall. fellow innovators Thelonious Monk and John
As one of jazz’s great innovators and relentless Coltrane was released. Recorded between April and
experimenters; as one of its most restless and careful July of 1957, Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane is
students; as perhaps its greatest risk taker in terms marked by a combination of haunting beauty and a
of his willingness not only to break, but also some- clarity that seems to emerge from an unfathomable
times ruthlessly to destroy conventions, it could depth. This LP celebrates an empathy of disposition
be said that Miles Davis was a musician always in between Monk’s piano and Coltrane’s tenor sax. In
search of the next difficulty. A difficulty that he truth, the album represents a certain anachronism,
sought out with that inimitable cool, in the way that because by the time the LP was released in 1961,
only Miles Davis could. Cool, we can say without Coltrane was a band leader in his own right. The LP
hesitation, was born with Miles. Whatever Miles itself, however, featured appearances by Coleman
did, whatever the direction in which he took jazz, he Hawkins (tenor) and Art Blakey (drums). The per-
did so in an inimitably Miles fashion. Just consider cussive work on “Ruby, My Dear,” by turns subtle
the many iterations of jazz, the many interpreta- and even more subtle, is a thing to behold in itself.
tions, the many innovations that issued from Miles. No matter the achievements of his contempo-
The many moods of Miles Davis. Just consider . . . raries, notable and beautiful as they are, Miles was
In the bebop years there was ’Round About charting his own path, setting himself the task of
Midnight (1957), his first recording with saxophon- ever greater innovation. His recordings of the 1950s
ist John Coltrane, Paul Chambers on bass. There and ’60s was followed by even more experimenta-
were those signal jazz recordings, Sketches of Spain tion in the 1970s. During this period, Miles was
(1960) and Milestones (1958), but none of these working in genres that ranged from fusion to funk,
albums matched the magnificence of Kind of Blue from African rhythms to electric music technol-
(1959), with Bill Evans on piano. Kind of Blue is ogy. Whatever fascinations had compelled Art
Farred Nka • 9