British Museum - African art (Room24)

Africa (Room 25)

"The diverse cultural life of Africa has been expressed through everyday objects and unique works of art since ancient times. The Museum’s collection of over 200,000 African items encompasses archaeological and contemporary material from across the continent." The British Museum

• From known associations with African Art; what is unusual about the Collection?
• Who can use the museum? What is it's Purpose?
• How does the exhibition portray the collection?

When you mention African art immediatly you picture the following connitations: emphasised human figures; visual abstractions (rarther then natural representations); the use of bright colours; an ephasis on sculpture and three dimential work e.g. wallhangings and decorative clothing; performance art: including crafted performance contexts masks and costumes; spiritual backgrounds; and nonlinear scaling or fractural gemoratry (where as part of the designs are larger, representing natural growth as opposed to pattern). These subjective overviews are true for the more traditional Africa.

Previously scholars and art collectors have been naieve with the presentation of African arts, displaying only the traditional examples and leaving out Africa great and thriving contemporay art culture.

Museums and galleries have shifted their views on what is important in curating a display, it is not longer just about getting dates and locations right or putting the most unusual objects at the front of the display. The audiences of museums have widened. Now a broader range of people are asking for the truth. For Room 24 it means sharing display space between traditional and contemporary designs to widern the opinions of African art as only availiable in the primitive (objects from africa hundreds of yesars old).

Britian, especially london, is a multi-cultural society, people from across the globe will use the British gallery as a source of information and education. The museum is using this as an opportunity to not only show examples of good designs and artwork, but to give people a chance to learn about their or their decendants cultures

In other museums rooms, the truth and thoughtful displays can mean: displaying objects respectivily (even taking objects down if they are disrespectful to traditions etc. e.g. pots symbolising the dead); hightlighting problems with ownership, making it clear how a object was exivatored even if it was unjust (enen if it means returning the object) and re-evaluating dates curators decided when propergander has an influence. Not all departments or other museums are as developmental as African Art Room 25.

Below are three examples of art work in room 25 , each an important example of good curatorship.

Introducing a broad range of Designs

El Anatsui

Man's Cloth

As the viewer walks into the African art room directly in front of the entrance is El Anstsui sculpture, Man's Cloth. Born in 1944, Anstsui is famous as being one of Afric'a foremost contemporary artists. He is a Ghanaian sculptor but is now based in Nigeria where he works as an educator for Africa's new talent, Head of Sculpture in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. To display his work to every visitor can see it is not only helping establish Africa's contempoary movement but it is also refreshing everyones sterotypical view on what African art should look like.

El Anatsui used many different materials. In this he is working with recycled discarded foil bottle neck wrappers. The piece is a sculpture of the traditional Ghana made, narrow-strip ,woven silk. A strong representation of national pride. He has chosen to work with recycled materials to addresses the erosion of cultural values and inherited traditions through unchecked consumerism and continued transmission. His work is ultimately optimistic, though, indicating the dynamism and strength of tradition.

Providing a cultural reference

Tree of Life

Cristovao Canhavato

Hilario Nhatugueja

Fiel dos Santos

Adelino Serafim MatéMaputo

Mozambique, 2004

The sculpture as a memorial, is an example of how African people in the UK can benifit from the museum.

The Tree of Life is a colaboration project between four Mozambican artists: Cristovao Canhavato (Kester), Hilario Nhatugueja, Fiel dos Santos and Adelino Serafim Maté. Supported by Christian aid, it stemed from the Transforming Arms into Tools (TAE) project, which was set up in 1995 by Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane. It related to the 1976 to 1995 Mozambique civil war which left millions of guns remaining hidden or buried around the country. Te project was an attempt to get the weapons decommissioned to resolve their threat. Mozambicans were encouraged to hand weapons over in exchange for items like ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. The weapons were then cut up and turned into sculptures like the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is a powerful memorial to war.

Explaining the Truth

Benin plaque

The oba with Europeans Benin, Nigeria, Edo peoples, 16th century AD

This plaque has the figure of the Oba in the centre. The Oba, direct descendant of Oranmiyan, the legendary founder of the dynasty, was the spiritual, secular and ritual head of the kingdom. He retained control over the major export resources (ivory, slaves, gum and palm kernels) and over trade between the kingdom and Europeans. The Art was an important instrument of ideology and the Oba controlled the artistic production of the palace craftsmen.

The Plaque above shows the Oba dressed in a loin-cloth with a plaited border and a close-fitting, sleeved upper garment, covered with cylindrical beads. He is accompanied by two attendants, as well as representations of long-haired Europeans which are shown either side of his head. Showing the ruler flanked by two attendants is a typical pictorial composition of brass and ivory works from Benin. The composition can therefore be seen as referring to the weight of office and to the responsibility of the people to assist their ruler.

There are over 900 plaques of this type in various museums in England, Europe and America. The bronzes in the British Museum were seized as booty in a punitive British army raid. The royal palace and stores were ransacked: some of the bronzes still show scorch marks from being wrenched from pillars in the burning palace. What is important about the display of the Bronzes is that the British Museum do not try to justify the Briish actions or hide them, instead they openly tell the story on a plaque for everyone to read: "Most of them were taken from the palace during the British Punitive Expedition in 1897."

They are thought to have been made in matching pairs and fixed to pillars in the Oba's palace in Benin City. It was discovered that the museum have been disrespectful and disregarding in the care of the objects, when in 2002 The British Museum addmitted to selling 30 pieces of Benin bronze in the 1950s and 1960s because they were considered Duplicates instead of part of a pair. Link to Guiardian article.

This raises the exsisting and still current debate as to who should have ownership of the placues. Idealy, if known to have been wrongly taken, the museum should return artifacts. However, having looked after and cared for, for so long, the objects now considered of worth: financially, historically and culturally. Musuems tend to be selfish and want to be sure the objects will go somewhere where they will be: safe, undamaged; not stolen by looters; distroyed by the owners in cultural riturals; sold on or lost because of political unrest; in an exchange where they aren't given to any fraudsters. It is an uneasy subject one that will eventually have to be resolved.