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African Art and Culture in MaineAuthor(s): Simon OttenbergSource: African Arts, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring, 2006), pp. 1, 4, 8, 10, 86-89, 96Published by: UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20447744 .

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African Art and Culture in Maine I n recent years I have resided in Maine dur

ing the summer. Maine is one of the least ethnically diverse states in the United States. Yet, I have found a variety of African activities and individuals there. There may be others that I have not discovered, as I

generally move about the state's southern re gion. Maine is better known for its New Eng land maritime art, its lobsters and fishing, and its resorts and summer camps than for any in terest in Africa. The African artistic and cultur al diaspora-in contemporary arts and crafts, in more or less "traditional" forms, in tourist objects, and in the presence of Africans and scholars of African art-now exist in Maine. If these have reached Maine, where are they not found now in the United States? The American experience with African art and culture is grow ing at the everyday grassroots level, alongside the more elite contributions of museums and universities, with which scholars are likely to be familiar.

In 2004 1 arrived in Portland, Maine the day

before the annual celebration of the Museum of African Culture (formerly the Museum of Afri can Tribal Art), which I attended. This small museum, located in three rooms on the ground floor of a residential home, has been in opera tion for more than seven years. It was found ed, and is owned and directed by Oscar 0.

Mokeme, an Igbo from Oba, near Onitsha, in southeastern Nigeria. Mokeme began collecting and interpreting African art in Nigeria in 1976. He came to the United States in 1979, and since then has had a varied career, attending universi

ty and operating import and export businesses. In 1998 he put that aside to found his museum.

The only African-owned museum in the United States, as far as I know, the Museum of

African Culture is a nonprofit institution. Its collection consists of more than 1,500 objects, and Mokeme has many others stored in his

Nigerian hometown. The museum's main at tractions consist of masks, stools, and other ob jects of Igbo background which have been used in ceremonies in Nigeria and, unusually for a

museum, a considerable number of full-dress costumes to go with the masks. These are on

display in the permanent gallery. A second, somewhat smaller gallery is used for rotating exhibitions of personal collections of individu als from Maine and nearby New Hampshire, as well as some other Igbo objects and works from other regions of West Africa. While much of the Igbo material comes from Oba and the surrounding area, which Mokeme returns to now and then, he has also brought- to Maine objects from Awka, Nri, and Igbo-Ukwu (Fig. 1). There are also some West African tourist pieces on display. The Igbo masks and figures

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airini 2001 atrlcan art:



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vary in quality from those very well sculpted by my standards, to the average, and to the mediocre. They range from those of some age to the relatively new. As a whole, they are

much as we might see art objects in an actual Igbo masquerade, rather than what we view in a museum exhibition, where only the finest pieces (by Western standards) are likely to be presented. The museum collection thus pro vides me with the sense of being in Africa more than do the usual African exhibitions in the United States. The museum is developing a small educational center, which indudes a small African art and culture lending library. School children in the Portland area appear to be fre quent visitors to the museum and are the users of this educational room.

On August 8, 2004, at the sixth anniversary celebration in the courtyard in back of the mu seum, Mokeme masked and dressed in one of the museum's costumes, energetically danced and drummed for a modest audience of his white supporters, who assist him in running the museum and in raising funds for it. Some of these helpers have had African experience themselves; one of them was exhibiting her col lection of African miniatures in the museum at the time of the celebration. The museum sur vives through the energy of Mokeme and these helpers, with modest grants from local busi nesses and foundations and the city of Port land, as well as through gifts of objects by interested persons. Admission is free, with a suggested donation.

As far as I know Mokeme is not in the busi

ness of selling African art, but of being a mu seum director. The museum's recent name change reflects his desire to focus more on edu cation about Africa in general, rather than en

tirely on the arts, and his is the only institution in northern New England devoted entirely to African culture. Not only are there visiting school groups at the museum, but Mokeme talks on African culture and cultural diversity at schools from kindergarten through grade 12, at universities and colleges in Maine and New Hampshire, and at other sites. In early 2005 he began showing videos and films every Friday at 5:00 pm, projected onto a small screen in one of the museum's galleries; both projector and screen were obtained through a small grant. Fifteen to twenty people generally show up for these screenings. The visuals are mainly from Nigeria, Senegal, and Mali. Mokeme also occasionally holds story-telling sessions. The museum has recently established the Museum of African Culture Endowment Fund, through

Continued on page 8

1. Nmuo Ikanga (spirit-community pride) Oba area, not far from Onitsha, 1940s Wood, cloth, shells, 3m (10') Museum of African Culture, Portland, Maine Containing two maiden spirit masks with four coiled snakes, these figures represent the four Igbo market days. The masquerade celebrates the values of women and respect for them. It ap pears on invitation at festivals and at funerals, displaying the pride of the village that owns it.

african arts U C LA

editors Maria C. Berns Allen F. Roberts Mary Nooter Roberts Doran H. Ross

book review editor Victoria L. Rovine

dialogue editor Sidney Littlefield Kasffr

exhibition review editor, north america Christa Clarke

exhibition review editor, overseas Constantine Petridis

film/video editor Robert Cancel

_photo essay editor Christraud M. Geary

consulting editors Rowland Ablodun Mary Jo Arnoldi Judith Bettelheim Suzanne Preston Blier Elisabeth L. Cameron Robert Cancel Christa Clarke Henry John Drewal Christraud M. Geary Michael D. Harris William Hart Salah M. Hassan Manuel A. Jordan P6rez Bennetta Jules-Rosette Sidney Littlefield Kasfir Sandra Klopper Christine Mullen Kreamer Alisa LaGamma Frederick Lamp Kristyne Loughran Joseph Nevadomsky Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechle Constantine Petridis John Picton Victoria Rovine Raymond A. Silverman Robert Farris Thompson Kenji Yoshida

executive editor Leslie Ellen Jones

art director Gregory A. Cherry

operations manager Eva P. Howard

African Arts (ISSN 0001-9933; ISBN 0-9762618-5-5) is published quarterly by the University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 1310, in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. For editorial information and advertising rates, write African Arts, The J.S. Coleman African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1310. Phone: 310-825-1218. Fax: 310-206-2250. Email: afriartsedit@inter national.ucla.edu. The opinions of contributors and advertisers are not necessarily those of African Arts. Subscrption information: African Arts is distributed by The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 02142. Subscription and address changes should be addressed to MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1407. Phone: 617-253-2889. Fax: 617-577-1545. Email: [email protected]. Subscription rates: Individuals $72.00; Institutions $125.00. Canadians add 7% GST. Outside the U.S. and Canada add $20.00 for postage and handling. Prices subject to change without notice. Single issues: Current issues are $20.00. Back issue rates: Indi viduals $22.00; institutions $44.00. Canadians add 7% GST. Outside the U.S. and Canada add $5.00 per issue for postage and handling. Prices subject to change without notice. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to African Arts, MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1407. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA and at additional post offices. Permission to photocopy articles for internal or personal use is grant ed by the copyright owner for users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center ( CCC), Transactional Reporting Service, provided that the per copy fee of $10 per article is paid directly to the CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 02193 (flee code: ISSN 0001-9933). Address all other inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, MIT Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Cambridge MA 02142. Phone: 617 253-2864. Fax: 617-259-5028. Email: [email protected]. ?) 2006 by the Regents of the University of California. Printed in Hong Kong.

OSCAR MOKEME

4



-, Top: 2. Angele Etoundi Essamba, Cameroun. La Battante (The Victor) 1996

*- .r _, q Photograph, 99cm x 68.6cm (39" x 27) / * * 'j | Many of Essamba's photographs are of faces or

figures of African women. This one celebrates the - beauty of an elegantly liberated African woman,

L - , __ gD= ^ * * sitting on a bird cage. The symbolism of freedom to fly is evident. Note the elegant headtie and the use of line and contrast.

Bottom: 3. Naglaa Ezzat, Egypt Bashtake Palace, 2001 Graphite and paper, 76.2cm x 101.6cm (30' x 40")

le . ; Wv* ^.? ;_ ;\; FA scene of quiet and contemplation. A young be jeweled woman in simple cloth contrasts with the rough stone structure beside and behind here. The angle of her body complements that of the stone steps, forming a "V."

Since 1976 he has practiced what he calls "tra ditional pluralistic Igbo transcultural psycho therapy and healing rituals." For healing he employs one Igbo shrine in the museum for di agnosis and another for developing cures. He treats barrenness as well as other health prob lems for both African-Americans and whites, but does not charge for his services; rather, he suggests donations to the museum's endow ment. The museum exhibited a healing shrine at the International Conference on African Healing

Wisdom in Washington, DC on July 6-9, 2005. The rather simple quality of the Museum of

African Culture, located on a side street, sharply contrasts with the Portland Museum of Art, two blocks away, just off of a main city street, whose major building addition was designed by Henri Nicolls Cobb of the I.M. Pei architectural group and constructed in 1983. It houses a fine collec tion of New England artists, including Wmslow Homer, as well as the Joan Whitney Payson col lection, a modest collection of modem European and American art. This museum has initiated enterprising exhibitions on modem American and European artists, one containing African art: "Affinities of Form," an exhibition of Afri can, Oceanic, and Native American art drawn


the Maine Community Foundation, to educate

the public on issues of diversity and African culture. Mokeme would like to publish a cata

logue of selected pieces in his collection. Mokeme's dedication to art and perfor

mance is so great that not too long ago he be

gan paying school fees for some primary and _ l secondary students at Oba on condition that they were willing to take part in masquerades,

which are dying out as a result of social change and evangelism. And through a $15,000 grant from the Maine Arts Commission he created The Black Artists Forum of Maine, through which he is attempting to interest black art ists in Maine and New Hampshire in drawing l from African art, as well as providing them 1 _ with a base at the museum for communication and interaction.i

Mokeme is also an Igbo healer (dibia) with the priesthood title, acquired in 1982, of Ugo Orji the First, the Ozo Dimani of Aboriji-Oba.

NAGLAA EZZAT 8 atlcmen art: * sri.u 2906



MIMI WOLFORD

from the Raymond and Laura Wielgus collec tion at Indiana University, in 1996. The major ity of the African objects in it were "traditional" twentieth-century pieces. The symbolic con trast between the two museums is evident. The substantial, well-established Portland Art Mu seum and the struggling, small African one

MONICUE HOUELLER

tied to the entrepreneurship of an enthusiastic African and a small group of non-African fol lowers determined to bring African art and cul ture to Maine, symbolize the wealth and power of the United States in contrast to the struggles of Africa and its ordinary citizens to survive and to achieve.

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), at the Maine College of Art (MECA) near the Portland Museum of Art, has had two con temporary African art exhibitions. One was "Beyond Decorum: the Photography of Ike Ude," by the Nigerian artist living in New York

Continued on page 86

Clockwise from top left:

4. Sira Sissoko, Mali Danse des Signes Bambara (Dance of the Bambara Signs), 2004 Handmade paper and natural dyes, 43.2cm x 35.6cm (17ix 14')

Sissoko learned to make paper at a Bamako work shop. She employs natural colors derived from henna, mud, onionskin and cinnamon, and here uses Bamana symbols to represent the powers of water, of masks and circumcision, among others elements.

5. Monique le Houeller Resides in Abidjan, born in Hue, Vietnam Blue Door, c. 2000 Bronze and mixed media, h 58.2cm (23)

The work pays homage to the Toureg, with their blue robes. It is not a Toureg door, but symbolizes the openness of their nomadic life. Doors, or their absence, are important in African life. Compli ments of William Karg, Contemporary African Art Gallery, New York City.

6. Roselyne Marikasi Zimbabwe No Time to Grieve, c. 2000 Oil on canvas, 91.4cm x 91.4cm (36 x 36")

Marikasi's paintings employ much blue and small, harsh strokes. Due to AIDS there is barely time to grieve before another funeral. The human images suggest dignity and cooperation in the face of a major health crisis.

ROSELYNE MARIKASI

10 afpican arpt sirino 2606



created recently in plastic-coated telephone wire by Elliott Mkhize, a contemporary artist in Dur ban (Fig. 5). Perhaps a century ago, the woven pedestal plate was designed for secular markets far removed from southeast Africa, demonstrat ing that imported wire has long been an artistic

medium in Zulu trading history. While exten sive cultural interaction seems more visible here than elsewhere in the continent, we were re

minded in this gallery that international mar keting is not new to sub-Saharan cultures.

The Global Sphere barely suggested the dy namic popular culture that is currently evident in post-apartheid South Africa. Nevertheless, creative energy resonated throughout the exhi bition's presentation of fluid, interlocking, and developing spheres of human life. Mentally, the viewer returned full circle through the spheres, to the powerful and disquieting contemporary sculptures in the introductory gallery. Here again was the wall text reminder that the sig nificance of any work of art constantly varies, in relation to each individual who contemplates it. In an exhibition of African art, it was espe cially refreshing to encounter emphases on the flux of continual change and on the centrality of unique personhood.

"Asking for Eyes" will be on exhibition at the William D. Cannon Art Gallery from April 23-July 9, 2006, and additional venues are also

being considered. The exhibition was initiat ed and coordinated by art historian Teri Sowell at San Diego State University, whose students of African art were given the opportunity to enroll in her Curatorial Practices seminar, in order to develop a unique exhibition. Nineteen undergraduate and graduate students volun teered to manage all aspects of the exhibition's development, research, fundraising, installation and graphic design, marketing, education, and community outreach, including the publication of the handsome illustrated 109-page catalogue, with 6 essays, 117 illustrations in color, collec tion list, and bibliography.

The catalogue is available for $20.00 plus shipping from [email protected], or call 760-737-2903. U

Top: 8. Woven wire plate on pedestal Zulu people, Natal, South Africa, nineteenth century Silver wire, copper wire; 10.2cm x 20.3cm x 20.3cm (4' x 8' x 8') Prynnsberg Collection

Bottom: 9. Contemporary wire basket with horn bill and insect designs Elliot Mkhize. Zulu people, Natal, South Africa Colored telephone wire. 17.8cm x 20.3cm x 20.3cm (7T x 8" x 8") Purchased in 1996


City, held in 2000 under the supervision of the Institute's then director, Mark H.C. Bessire, and the other, presented in 2002, was "Trans lation/ Seduction/ Displacement," an exhibi tion of post-conceptual and photographic work by South African artists, curated by Lauri Firs tenberg and John Peffer in 2001.

During the summer of 2004 1 twice attended an exhibition, "Out of Bounds; Women Artists from Africa," at the art gallery of the small, pri vate Westbrook College in suburban Portland, part of the University of New England. The gallery, which never had held an African ex hibition before, is quite modem-three floors with a good-sized room on each-designed by Thomas Larson, a well-known Boston archi tect. "Out of Bounds" exhibited the art of twen ty women artists, and was curated by Mimi

Wolford of Washington, DC. She founded and directs the Mbari Institute for Contemporary African Artl in that city and places occasional exhibitions of contemporary African art at vari ous sites in the United States. Her mother, the late Jean Kennedy, was the author of an impor tant early survey of contemporary African art (Kennedy 1992). The Kennedys, and Wolford as a girl, lived in Lagos during the time of the

development of the Oshogbo artists and were among their patrons, holding salons for them in Lagos and at times exhibiting their work at venues in the United States. Wolford inherited her parents' substantial collection of Nigerian contemporary art.

While Wolford's exhibition of African wo men's art reflected her experience with Nige rian art-four of the twenty artists were from there-it had a broad sweep. Most of the artists lived in the United States, or had spent time here. They varied in age from young to senior, coming from widely different areas of Africa. In artistic experience they ranged from the well established to those taking part in their first American exhibition. (However, neither Sokari Douglas Camp nor Magdalene Odundo, two prominent contemporary African women art ists, both of whom have spent periods in the United States, were included).

Wolford writes in the exhibition brochure: "This is not an exhibition of the victimized; it showcases a group of extremely strong women, illustrating their concerns on many topics."

Well known in the United States is Nike Davies Okundaye (formerly Olaniyi), who was repre sented by cloth work and some interesting early embroidery pieces that I had never seen before. One large, starch-resist cloth, Osun Fes tival, was typical of much of her work, depict ing numerous figures and events, so that the viewer's eye wandered about to take it all in.

Ada Udechukwu, who freely interprets from Igbo uli style, was represented by works in ink, graphite and a collage. Her art is unusual among contemporary African artists for its very personal and introspective qualities. Angele Etoundi Essamba from Cameroun, who trained in art in Paris and the Netherlands, presented black-and-white photographs of human fig ures; for example, La Battante (The Victor), an image of a woman calmly sitting on top of an

KEVIN WALSH

KEVIN WALSH

86 afpIcan arts : spring 2001



empty cage, glorying in her freedom (Fig. 2). Naglaa Ezzat from Egypt displayed large, de tailed graphite drawings of women in various poses. I particularly liked her Bashtake Palace, which depicted an Egyptian woman sitting in a contemplating mood on the steps of a palace in old Cairo (Fig. 3). The interesting abstract work of Sira Sissoko from Mali, who trained at the National Institute of Arts in Bamako, employs double sheets of hand-made papers and muted natural background colors derived from henna, mud, onionskin, and cinnamon. I found her Danse des Signs Bambara to be striking, perhaps since it reminded me of Igbo uli motifs, in em ploying Bamana-like symbols in small strokes on background squares of dark, medium, or light brown (Fig. 4). Her art is sparse, neat, and precise. Monique Le Houeller, who resides in Abidjan though born in Hue, Vietnam, has adopted Africa as her home and has traveled widely in Africa. Her work, largely in metal, referred to the Sahel environment. Blue Door, a bluish, double-door standing piece, has di rect reference to the Toureg (Fig. 5). The paint er Roselyne Marikasi, from Zimbabwe, who trained in that country but now lives in the United States, is one of a number of artists in the exhibition whose pieces commented on AIDS. In her No Time to Grieve, men, with women in the background, are lowering a cas ket into the ground; the title refers to the high frequency of deaths from AIDS in Africa (Fig. 6). While there were too many artists to men

tion them all, the exhibition as a whole was strongly expressive of African life from wo men's viewpoints, with an awareness of Af rica's problems, and the need for adequate solutions. It has yet to appear elsewhere: It is worth showing again.

An earlier exhibition, which I missed, again curated by Mimi Wolford, "The Colors of Afri ca-Contemporary Perspectives," occurred at the same gallery between November 16,2001, and January 5, 2002. Consisting of seventy works by thirty-six artists from eighteen African countries, it included well-known artists such as Ibrahim El Salahi, Amir Nour, El Loko, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Twins Seven-Seven, Sane Wadu, Wosene Kosrof, Sofia Kifle, and William Kent ridge, as well as many younger artists. It was designed to show the rich variety of styles and talents in African contemporary art.

Several years ago there was an exhibition of the art of the well-known South African art

ist William Kentridge at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and in 1999 at Colby Col lege, Waterville, there was a traveling exhi bition about the African American artist David Driskell, entitled "Narratives of African-Amer ican Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection." In 2003 there was an exhibition of the photographs at various sites in Maine enti

tled "Sebastiao Salgado: Migrations-Human ity in Transition," organized by the Portland

Museum of Art. The Institute of Contempo rary Art at the Maine College of Art exhibit ed Salgado's African photographs. Cindy Foley, the ICA's African education director, working with an after-school program, Project Safe and Smart, consisting mainly of African refugee students, showed them Salgado's images of ref

ugee life in Africa. She discussed with them different perspectives on refugees, but the chil dren's experiences often differed from those expressed in the photographs, opening up their memories of Africa, and sometimes acting as a catharsis-art in the service of therapy. Aimee Bessire, of the school's art history de partment, asked the students how they would portray their lives in Africa and in Maine. Foley gave them black-and-white throw-away cameras to document their present lives, out of which selected photographs were shown in the entry to MECA at the time of the Sal gado exhibition.

There are a number of African performance groups in southern Maine, including The Nile Girls and the Acholi Boys, both from the Sudan; a Congolese girls dance group; God frey Banda, an mbira performer from Zim babwe; and the dancer Brigitte Ndaya from Cameroun. In early 2005 The Nile, a restau rant in Portland serving Somali and Middle Eastern food, was started by a Somali. Ref ugees from that country were settled in Port land some years ago, a good number of whom have moved north to Lewiston, where the living is less costly. At Hancock, Maine, on coastal US Highway 1, several hours north of Portland, a small gallery, Arts and Africana, is run by Chriss Covert. She and her husband, Gray Parrot, have Gambian connections, visit ing there at times. He learned to play the kora from a Gambian master, sings in Mandinka, and occasionally performs at Maine events, and also has a weekly African music program at a

community radio station WERU-FM. Covert, who has had her gallery since 2002, is open on Fridays and Saturdays in the summer. Its con tents are not unusual for an African tourist gallery except for the large selection of Afri can cloths, which she obtains on visits to the Gambia, Senegal, and Mali, through African dealers in the United States, or from private individuals. What is unusual is that most of her cloth sales are to quilters in the eastern United States at quilting conventions and ex hibitions. Much of this cloth is then cut into patches to use in hand-produced quilts, an in triguing diaspora element-Africa linked to a traditional American craft skill, which itself de rived from Europe.

Another small tourist gallery, Deepest Af rica Imports, run by Jackie Pelletier, is on Deer Island, further north along the Maine coast. This summer resort area is where the Hay

stack Mountain School of Crafts Center is located. Here, Wok Marcia Kure, a Nigerian contemporary artist residing in the United States, took a short course in fiber design in

the summer of 2004. Deepest Africa Imports specializes in objects from southern Africa not so much cloth as beads, dolls, jewelry, and other tourist items. The gallery owner lived in South Africa for a time and has contacts there to supply her store.

In addition to museums and galleries, Maine also boasts academic resources in African art. Dr. Aime~e Bessire, a graduate of Harvard's Af rican art history program under Suzanne Blier, who carried out two years' research among the Sukuma of northwestern Tanzania, is an

assistant professor and chair of the Art His tory Department at the Maine College of Art (MECA) in Portland, where she mostly teaches African art related courses. In the 2005-06 academic year she will also teach two courses at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Her most recent research has been in African photogra phy, performance traditions in the diaspora, and in the study of objects employed for re ligious communication in Sukuma tradition. She recently published an interesting article in African Arts on Sukuma art performance, in which mostly wood figures are employed in ritual contests (Bessire 2005). She is planning a project on the study of power objects in three

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African societies, one of which may be the Igbo, working with Oscar Mokeme. She has been an active advisor on the board of his mu

seum and in assisting Mokeme in preparing grant proposals. She works to bring togeth er members of the Somalian community in Maine through MECA's Creative Communi ty Partnerships.

The art historian Dr. Julie L. McGee teach es in the Art History and Africana Studies program at Bowdoin College, specializing in African American and South African studies. Trained at Bryn Mawr in Northern (Dutch) Mannerist painting, she then taught at Bow doin, later working in New Orleans in a non

profit organization with public school teachers in the Delta River Region, and teaching a course at Tulane University. In the South she discovered a love for African American and African art, but felt that the scholarship on African art within African American art his tory was poor. A summer program in C6te d'Ivoire with Philip M. Peek and Jerry Vogel further stimulated her African interests and she has been involved with the contemporary arts of South Africa for some five years. She

taught in the CBB Cape Town program, a joint

off-campus study center run by three Maine colleges-Colby, Bowdoin, and Bates-and sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, a pro ject which closed in 2005.

Out of this experience she codirected and coproduced, with the South African Vuyile C. Voyiya, a 50-minute DVD, The Luggage is Still

Labeled: Blackness in South African Art (2003). The film concerns the cultural politics and socio economic constraints for post-apartheid black South African artists, indicating that the struc tural conditions of a social and political nature existing during apartheid have not been dissi pated. White control of the major galleries still continues, few black art teachers exist at uni versities and colleges, black artists are viewed as a separate and special category, a step down from white artists, and a range of institutional controls inhibit the development of the work of black artists; their marginalization still con tinues. The DVD has created some controver sy, as some others feel that the situation has improved considerably for black artists since apartheid's end and that some of them have succeeded at the national and international level. Of course, artists in the West are also subject to institutional control, the domination of curators, art critics, dealers, and the views of scholars at art schools. But South Africa has had its history of apartheid and racism and the period that has followed has not removed all these elements, as is also the case in other areas of South African life. Lacking expertise here, I am not in a position to fully evaluate the ar

guments, but it is clear that there are still prob lems for black artists growing out of past apartheid experience.

McGee is now also completing a manu script on the well-known African American artist David Driskell, and she left for South Africa on August 1, 2005, to write a small monograph on Garth Erasmus, whose work she has followed for several years. She has pub lished a number of articles on contemporary South African art.

The growth in Maine of African elements covers a wide range of social levels-includ

ing museums and galleries, academia, dance and singing groups, tourist galleries, a restau rant, and most importantly immigrants and refugees from the Horn of Africa. There are a variety of collaborations between Africans and others. The African presence and influ ence at a wide range of social levels is occur

ring everywhere in America. I see it in Seattle, where there are substantial groups of So malians, Eritreans, and Ethiopians, each with their cultural centers and their own artists. At one time a gallery in downtown Seattle exist

ed which specialized in contemporary Africa art. A small African Studies Program exists at the University of Washington and there is the very fine Katherine White Collection at the Seattle Art Museum. We see the profound African presence in the spread of Yoruba cul ture, not only in urban areas such as in New York, but in the American South and else where. We see it in Moyo Okediji's recent work on the ways that African American artists have drawn from Yoruba art (Okediji 2003). And from personal experience, as a scholar of the Igbo, I am impressed with how many Igbo are teaching about African culture in American col leges and universities.

If African art and culture is now widely represented in America at a broad range of social levels, we see a profound change since the immediate post-independence period. It is

my hope, perhaps idealistic, that these various forces bringing knowledge of African culture and its arts to America will somehow counter act the very poor impressions of Africa that exist today in the United States as a conse

quence of the continent's economic problems and its political and military conflicts. The African presence, even in the American hin terlands of Maine and Seattle, enriches the American experience. African arts and culture are now well represented in the four corners of the United States-in Florida, southern Cali fornia, Maine, and Seattle, as well as in the

center of this country. To the youngest and next youngest genera

tion of scholars of African art and culture in this

country, all of this may simply be seen as part of the African diaspora with which they are quite familiar. But when I compare all of it to

what existed in the US when I was a young

scholar in the 1950s and 1960s, there have been

remarkable developments. At those earlier dates there was virtually no movement of Af ricans to the US, though of course there were the descendants of African slaves, who, by and large, appeared at the time distant from Africa. The term "diaspora," so common today in schol arship with reference to Africans and their arts and cultures in the Americas (and even in the Middle East and Asia), was primarily em ployed with respect to Jews. There was little interest in Africa in the United States; its conti nent was seen as the under the influence of

88 afpican arts * spring 2006



European countries. Only among some African Americans was there interest in Ethiopia and in its emperor, Haile Selassie, and concern about Africa among some African-American intellec tuals, such as W.E.B. Dubois (1947). But other African-Americans scholars felt that the prob lems of race and black poverty in America were their main concern. There was some interest in Liberia, particularly among African Americans, which dated back to the nineteenth century. There was only a little interest in African cul tural and linguistic traits in the New World, then called Africanisms, for example, in the

work of Melville J. Herskovits (1941) and his students, and Lorenzo Dow Turner's study of the Gullah language (1949). Natural history

museums, such as the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Field Museum in Chicago, held strong African collec tions, though they rarely were presented as art, rather as ethnographic objects. African art was only taught at a few universities, and Afri can languages, so important for the under standing of the continent's art and culture, was even more rarely present at universities. The Harmon Foundation was the major institution

in the United States concerned with modern African art, particularly in the 1960s, until it was disbanded in 1967 and its collection and records dispersed (Brown 1966, Kelly and Stanley 1993:580). Only a very few American scholars had been to Africa for research.

Since those times, there has been an impres sive spread of knowledge of African art and culture at many different social and interest group levels, spurred on by the increasing presence of Africans in the United States. Africa is no longer "dark" in our country, but it is being positively received here by some, though its conflicts, dictatorships, and corrup tion in post-independence years have rein forced earlier stereotypes of Africans as a continent of primitives, incapable of governing themselves. Now, both positive and negative views of Africa exist side by side, I am pleased to have been, for some fifty years, associated

with the increasingly favorable views of Africa and its arts and culture in the United States. May Africa continue to blossom in America, as well as elsewhere in the world. O

Simon Ottenberg Notes, page 96

books Continued from page 12

on funerary textiles from the Madagascar high lands (Betsileo); Sarah Fee's on a broad range of issues concerning cloth production and its use in the southwest; Wendy Walker and Edgar Kreb's on raffia cloths from the southeast; and Odland on a form of ikat from the Sakalava

area that bears an uncanny resemblance to ikat from the Philippines. Between these four arti cles, we see everything from raffia and bark to cotton and silk. Indeed, even the latter is multi faceted. The biologist Richard S. Peigler, in his article on Malagasy raw silk, demonstrates that one particular silk cloth is itself a blend of mul berry silk (landikely) and wild silk (landibe), a conclusion he draws from stunningly detailed photographs he took using a scanned electron ic microscope (SEM).

Linton's textile collection is revealing in what it lacks as much as in what it contains. As

Fee and others point out, Linton never collected European textiles, even though the Malagasy were using them extensively at the time he was there. Some of those hybrids may already be evident in the W.T. Rawleigh Collection of Malagasy Portraits dating between 1910-1930 that Chantal Radimilahy writes about. Indeed,

Madagascar has had a long history of European contact, generating some of the earliest com prehensive accounts of textiles of anywhere in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. By the late nineteenth century, the French and British had greatly escalated their cloth trade to Mada gascar, as elsewhere in Africa, leaving an indeli ble mark on local cloth production and use. In his essay on change in the weaving of Highland Madagascar, Simon Peers informs us that by the mid-nineteenth century, the Malagasy had already lost three-quarters of their previous, rather diverse, textile production. He describes

the remains as the "survival of pockets of tech niques and styles."

One of those survivals is the so-called lamba, a rectangular-shaped cloth woven in two parts and, depending on the context, used for either the living or the dead. Once particular to only certain Madagascar groups, the lamba and its name are now recognized throughout much of the island as quintessen tial Malagasy attire. The coeditors emphasize the cultural importance of the lamba all the

more by including two appendices, one by Michael Razafiarivony on lamba song and another by Chantal Radimilahy on lamba and proverbs.

Change in Madagascar textile production, as Peer notes, is about more than just the sur vival of the old and traditional. Some weav ing experienced interesting permutations as a result of European contact. By the late nine teenth century, some Malagasy weavers were replicating the designs on European traded damask, resulting in a cloth with an entirely new aesthetic. Damask-inspired cloths were so much the norm by the time Linton was there that he felt compelled to collect it, and may even have thought of it as "traditional."

After reading Kusimba, Odlund, and Bron son's volume, with its emphasis on the cul tural mix that underlies Madagascar textile production, I came away convinced more by the Asian (and European) elements in Mala gasy textiles than by the sub-Saharan African ones, suggesting that more attention could have been given to arguing for the latter. As well, I felt that that there could have been a more concerted effort to contextualize the cloths featured in the Rawleigh portraits as they relate, or do not relate, to the Linton col lection. But overall, I praise the authors for their comprehensive, well-illustrated, and high

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/ wish to thank Oscar Mokeme, Aim?e Bessire, and Julie McGeefor valuable assistance in the preparation of this article. 1. The term Mbari harks back not only to the famous Igbo sculptural shrines, but also to Ulli Beier and the founding of the Mbari cultural centers in Oshogbo and Ibadan in the early 1960s and to other like-named ones that developed in Enugu and briefly in Germany at about the same time, all introduc ing contemporary Nigerian and African art to the public.

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AD V ER T ISE R IND EX

Aboriginals, Art of the First Person Sanibel Island, FL 88

Affrica Washington, D.C 87

Africa Direct 3

Axis Gallery New York, NY 13

Herman Bigham and Associates 12

The Carr Collection, Los Angeles, CA 9

Contemporary African Art New York, NY 87

Ethnix, New York, NY 89

Galerie Walu Zurich, Switzerland outside back cover

Hamill Gallery of African Art Boston, MA 13

Charles Jones African Art Wilmington, NC 89

MIT Press Journals Cambridge, MA inside front cover, inside back cover

Wm. Darrell Moseley Tribal Arts Franklin, TN 88

Mus6e Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, Switzerland 6-7

National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 5

OrnamentMagazine.com 1 1

Merton D. Simpson Gallery New York, NY 1

Totem Meneghelli Galleries Johannesburg, South Africa 13

Warni Society International New York, NY 89

www.africanlambas.com 4

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