Tellum Ancestor Figure V.S. Bamana Boli

This week in Art of Africa we were asked to compare and contrast between two items we have learned about in the last month and half. I decided to compare and contrast between the Tellum's Ancestor Figures and the Bamana's Boli.

As I was looking at these to figures I notice that they were both made of sacrificial material. Meaning that their our other means beside just wood and clay that make up these to figures. By other means, I mean that they are made of blood, semen and among other natural fluids. They also have powerful meaning behind them such as the Boli is use for a spiritual meaning or a spiritual charge and the Ancestor Figures that have raised arms are representing prayer which is part of the spiritual realm.  These prays are associate for asking for rain or other things of that nature. The abstraction of both of these items are similar in a way even though one is more of an animal like figure and the other is human figure, but the way the body is represented in both of these is very abstract. They obviously show a more unorthodox way of representing the limbs of these figures. The arms and legs aren't as natural looking as they could be. These were some of the things I noticed that were similar to both of these items.

I also many differences in these figures too. Such as the Boli is, as I stated before an animal like figure and the Tellum Ancestor figures are human figures, but that isn't the only thing that sets them apart. The Boli figure receives libations. This means that it has organic fluids such as blood and semen thrown on it. This is what makes it spiritually charged. As for the Tellum Ancestor figure they don't receive any such libations. The Tellum Ancestor figure that enters the spiritual world to ask for things on the behalf of the owner. So these figures have powerful meaning within the spiritual world. Another important differences with these two items is the Ancestor figure is owned by people within the community and the Boli is part of the men's association called the Kono, so it's part of a ritual ceremony. Even though I stated earlier how these two items were similar in abstraction. They are also different in it to, because the Boli figure has no indication of a face but the Tellum Ancestor figure does, which helps with the identification of that item. If the Boli were to have a face it would be much easier to tell it was an animal figure and not just a sculpture of some kind.

With these many similarities and differences. We must look at these items as for the way the are and their meanings. As you can see different cultures can have similarities among one another in making their spiritual items or figures but yet have just as many differences, which is what sets them apart from one another. Without these differences we wouldn't have different cultures but without the similarities items wouldn't make sense because they would be non recognizable. So what I'm trying to say similarities and differences are always a good thing when comparing and contrasting any two items such as the Boli and the Tellum Ancestor figures like I just did in this blog. 

Mask and Masquerades

The main topic for class this week was talking about masks and masquerades. We read an article by Herbert Cole called "Introduction: The Mask, Masking, and Masquerade Arts in Africa. He made some good valid points that I would like to talk a little about them this week in my blog.

One of those points that stuck out to me is the difference between representing and being embodied by the spirit of the mask. He stated that people of English speaking background pen the word mask as being a representation of a spirit not as seeing the person being embodied by the spirit within the mask. If we think about Cole's point, we as western people do have a tendency to just see the people in the masquerades as representing the mask and not as some who is possessed by the spirit or taken over by it. As he stated in his article African cultures see it not as a representation but more as the human being taken over by the spirit. It's the way the spirits come back to interact with the real world. Like we stated in class during discussion, the embodiment is the person becoming the spirit and the representation is the mask itself. So for example the Crazy Man mask of the Bwa culture is a representation of a anti-social man but once danced it becomes embodied into a real live spirit that shows this representation. It's part of their culture and their religious beliefs to see these mask as more then a mere representation.

Something that I notice this week while looking through the slides and watching the DVD about the masquerades was that taking the masks away from their context and outfits makes them seem so sculptural and insignificant to what they were meant to be used for or what the were designed to be. I found that just looking at them without the rest of the outfit makes them loss a lot of their visual intensity. They seem so incomplete. Maybe this is why we see them as representational items in the West instead of spirits like the African cultures do. It also could be because we have a hard time believing that people can be taken over by spirits, but for whatever reasoning we need to see them as the African cultures see them. It may be different if we were to see the masquerades in their settings in Africa because I feel you can't get the complete effect of the masks and how big they are to the African cultures until you see them in their normal settings. Something about seeing something live and in person is different then seeing it through the TV screen. It's kind of like a concert, seeing it on TV is just not the same as being there in person, because if you are at the live performance you can get a vibe from the audience and the performer and with the TV you just can't, which I'm sure would happen if you were to see a masquerade live.

The DVD we watched that showed a Bwa masquerade was very interesting to me. Even though it's not the same as being their to see it, it still gave good insight to what a masquerade is, and what it looks like performed. I have always found the masquerades to be interesting but the more I learn about them the more I find them intriguing. One of the things that I learned that I didn't know about was the darkening of the masks, the more dirty and worn the masks are the more knowledge that masker has compared to the clean white mask who are obviously beginners or learners of masquerading. Also when a masker dies the mask maybe put in a shrine to represent that person. I would have thought that these were consider sacred in away and wouldn't be put in shrines to represent that person's life, since these masks are an embodiment of another spirit and not the human that performed it. But I can also understand why they would do this because it's obviously part of what that human being did during his life time.

Masquerades and masking are essentially a big part of African culture and have been for many years. Still very influential to their culture and are still taught to the children. It is one "tradition" that has with stood the globalization of the rest of the world around them. Even though masking has forced some change to the recent masking through competition for the tallest mask or the coolest mask from culture to culture or village to village. It still has the same meaning and sacredness that they have always had in the past. I'm sure from years on they will still be of the same importance to their society.

Globalization, Cross Culture Pollination, Oh My!

This week in class we focused on the idea or globalization and cross culture pollination. We discussed how different African cultures take other countries cultural items and make it there own. This is what we call cross culture pollination. It's the idea that one culture takes the other culture's items or ideas and changes it to make it meaningful to them. Such as the extreme canvases talked about in the article we read called, "The Radiance of the King."

Extreme canvases are paintings for movies. They are commissioned in Ghana and were brought about because of a group of young people who wanted to start a business of taking a TV to different villages and showing them these different kind of movies. Their way of promoting these showings was to take a flour sack and oil paints and paint a poster to promote whatever movie they were going to show that night. Some of these movies were ones out of Hollywood and some from their own country. These posters were their way of getting people to come. These movie posters are a good example of cross culture pollination. They show how the Ghanaian people took a Hollywood movie poster and made it their own. It's not like our electronically made movie posters, or nor should they be because this is why they are so appealing to a tourist or someone of not Ghanaian descent.  (Picture of Ghana movie poster below)

To the left Ghana Movie Poster compared to our electronically made movie poster to the right. You can see the different ways on how they portrayed the movie poster to how we portrayed ours.

I will admit I think they are fascinating and decided to do a bit of research outside of just the readings and lectures from this week. I found this video of a guy named Glen Joffe, talking about the movie posters from Ghana. (see movie below) He talks about why they are fascinating and why the are unique to the Ghana area. One of his saying that he said at the beginning of the movie I found to be very true. He stated that, "Every culture is similar it just the way that we express ourselves is what makes us different from culture to culture ." Which is so true! We all have similar ways of living and doing things its just how we do them is what makes us different. Just like we have coffins and so does Ghana but the way we express how they look is what sets us apart from one another.

Cross culture pollination is also a way to connect ourselves with other cultures too. It's our way of keep up with everyone else, because if no cross culture pollination were to happen everyone would not be able to relate at all, but with this cross culture pollination we can to some sense. We may interpret it different but we can relate to it in some form. Just like when I saw the picture entitled Obama the Humble African, from the article The Radiance of the King, I thought he was holding a surf board and was the Hawaiian Obama but I was wrong. Even Cosentino, the author mentioned this too. He had thought the same thing but after doing some research into it he found out it was actually a shield Obama was holding. He was a Maasai warrior. I would have not thought of this if I hadn't read this article but I still was able to relate to it in some degree. This is what globalization does, it makes it so you can still relate but maybe not in the same way as the culture itself. It just very interesting to see how things can be interpreted from culture to culture and how different cultures use or see these different items.

It will also be strange to see if our next president will have the same impact to the Ghanaian people like Obama does now. Since they have so many painted posters of him. I sometimes wonder if they like him so much because he has the same sort of racial background as them? Would it be the same if the president were to be white? Would the paint as many pictures of that president as they do of Obama? These are some of the question I had as I went through this week and read this article. It's something to keep in mind for when we get a new president and to see if the future president will have this big of an impact in the Ghanaian culture in the future.

African Textiles!

So the past week we have been talking a lot about African Textiles in class. I have found it to be very interesting thus far. I have really enjoyed having Nani come to visit and show us batik and to see African drumming and dance from the Ghana area. It's been a pleasure getting to see how he expresses his art and dance in different ways then we do here in  the U.S.A.

When I found out that we were going to be doing Batik, a African Textile form this week, I was really excited. I love making things or doing things that other cultures do because I love learning about their traditions. Plus, I'm better at seeing how something is done then reading about it in a book. Something about being able to do batik makes it easier for me to understand how the process works then to read about it. It's so much more raw and real when you can actually see it in real life.

Batik as I said earlier is what we were doing with Nani during our workshops this week. It's a process in which you take wooden stamps and you dip them into hot wax called wax resist. Then you stamp your cloth with one or many stamps and die the cloth after that. Each one of the stamps has a meaning, such as the one I used for my cloth , it meant strength is unity. (Picture Below) 

Strength is Unity Stamp

My Batik Cloth

This is something I found to be awesome about adinkra stamping when we were learning about it this week. I like that the symbols are so abstract that if you were to look at them you wouldn't know the meaning of the stamp unless you were to know them by heart or if you had a chart that told you the symbol's meaning. I'm very fascinated in this type of textile form. I tend to wonder though how these symbols came to be and who decided what the meaning of each of these stamps are? Since this technique did not originate in Africa, it also makes me wonder who's idea it was and if the stamps were changed over time? It would make since that the technique and symbols would change over time because nothing never stays the same and each culture always puts their own ideas on what they want the item or items to look like and how they would fit within their culture.

In the John Picton article he explained the purpose of adinkra stamping. They commonly print them on funeral clothing. The colors depend on where to wear these adinkra stamped cloths though. The colors black, brown, red, and purple printed cloths are to be worn from the time of death to the time of burial and a white printed cloth is to be worn for post burial celebrations. Just like Nani said about his dancing skirt colors each color has a meaning for something, just like these colored cloths have a meaning for when to wear them. Plus each adinkra stamp has a proverb attached to it and work with the other stamps to make a more meaningful story to the clothing, like Picton says in his article. So, not only does the color have meaning but so does the stamping, which in combination makes a story in the end.

I'm really excited I got to experience batiking and stamping this week. I also loved hear the stories and information Nani had to tell us about his culture in Ghana. I wish we would of had more time to experiment with some other batik techniques such as using the wax drawing tool he showed us in class today, because it would have been fun to see the other ways of doing batik, but I'm grateful for the time we had with him. This was definitely one of my favorite cultural learning experiences so far. 

First Thoughts on African Art and Culture!

This semester I decided to take Arts of Africa to fulfill one of my art history requirements. Out of the many art history classes that the University of Northern Iowa offers I decided to take this class because I have always found the African art and culture to be very interesting. I will admit though, I'm not a big fan of learning about the history of art. It isn't one of my strong subjects and I find art history classes to be quit boring but after the first two weeks in this class, I'm rather interested in learning about the arts of Africa. I have learn so much already about their art and culture.

What I found to be very interesting these past two weeks are that the Western culture perceives African art in a totally different context then the African Americans see it. To the African Americans they see their art pieces as part of their culture and their way of living and not just for the sake of making art or making something look pretty. It seems to me that our Western culture tries to perceive it only as art and nothing else. We don't try to look into the object further because we figure since it's in a museum it is art and that's all there is to it, but there is so much more to that object that sits on a stool in the museum. We should look at that object and wonder why it was made and the context of which it is used in the African culture. Once this is done then you can get a better understanding of the object as a whole. For example if this sculpture of the these two figurines were in a museum. (Picture below)

A Western person would probably think "Oh these are cute figurines of twins," and just look at them and stroll right along to the next item. But there is so much more to the meaning of these two figurines. They are  twin figures that were made because every person is believed to have a spiritual twin in there life. These sculptures represent that twin and are carried around with them. Knowing this information the item because something different then a cute figurine. So, what I'm trying to say is to always ask yourself when looking at art why it was made and the context in which it is used or what it represents. Never just walk by an item and only look at it without asking questions.

I realized that I may have not asked questions before when walking through museums or looking at a culture's art because like many Westerners I had the same view of just thinking it was art and nothing else. But after being in this class for the past two weeks I realized that I have not given full attention to the art that is shown in museums. I can tell I am going to learn a lot from this class because I already have learned so much on how to view art as whole and  to see through another culture's eyes. I can't wait for what else I will learn in this class this semester.

Here are some of my favorite items we learned about these past  two weeks. The Dogon Granaries, which I found interesting because they were segregated by gender and they decorated the doors to each one of the granaries. The doors were decorated with things that had significant meaning or some type of story, which I found to be interesting since the granaries are just there to store food and other things.

above: Dogon Granaries
left: Dogon Granary door















My other item I found interesting is the Asante Stools. I found them intriguing because every person has one and they are symbolic to that person. Then when you die the are painted black and put in the ancestor shrines. I think that's cool because it's something specific to that person and another way to remember a person when they pass away.  Below: Asante Stool