Quick, When I Say "African Art", What Do You See?

[purejuice]

Malick Sidibe, Christmas Eve, 1963


Ouattara Watts, Dream Support



Jane Alexander, Butcher Boys



Samuel Fosso



Willem Boshoff, Kaartland


Kamala Ishaq Ibrahim, Loneliness


12th-14th century Yoruba shrine head

Not. You probably, with all the rest of us, visualize tribal art, as if Africa had no other past or present:


19th c. Fang mask, Louvre

Even if you're as hip as gloeden and me, you'll probably know little more than the post-colonial camp -- a polemic -- of the heavenly Afro-Brit, Yinka Shonibare. It's hard to get past:


Yinka Shonibare, Reverend on Ice

And while I am much less expert than most of you in the matter of indie rock and cultural appropriation, I submit this: of all the things the indie band Vampire Weekend may be guilty of, their joyous rendering of Afropop music is a good thing. Knocking them for ripping off African happy music, or, more crudely, as I suspect is the actual case, knocking them because they're not playing tribal mask African music or politically correct tormented revolutionary polemic African music, is racist in a particularly ignorant and yet arrogant way.

Clickez ici, as we say in Africa, for a short review of the art exhibit which accompanied The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994, which every citizen of the world should own. The first show of its kind curated by (gasp!) an African, Okwui Enwezor.

Comments

[microbie.livejournal.com]

Brent and I went to see Vieux Farka Toure at the Rock and Roll Hotel last year. The two opening performances were more traditional (more tribal?) African music and dance (traditional percussions and wind instruments, tribal dress), yet the performers themselves were African American. And then Vieux gets on stage and he's (just) African, and he plays with a Stratocaster the most amazing ground-breaking music- not Afropop nor American rock. And he's wearing jeans and a button-down loose Oxford.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

uh, yeah.
the afrocubans are the geniuses, i have to say, of sublime cultural appropriation, melding spanish musicality with afro percussion. i hope some day soon they can afford stratocasters. the heavenly music they make they make on old inner tubes, corrugated tin, untuned socialist pianos, and 60 year old cigar box mandolins.

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

Wonderful.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

no, you!!!

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

Sidibe!!

This whole thing makes me very happy. Thank you.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

yay!