Seeking New Dialogue about Artistic Influence Through the Experience of Africa
by Josie Mai

December 2003

“If we wish to tune into the aesthetic frameworks of other cultures, we need to make a special effort to push aside our everyday understandings of how art is talked about or written about and open ourselves to different modes of discourse. Often this means softening the distinction between artist and critic and paying closer attention to what art producers themselves have to say. And once we begin to listen, the commentary is abundantly available, as an eye-opening complement to European traditions of art criticism, both academic and journalistic” (Price 132).

This essay for me is fascinating and tricky first dip into considering issues of intercultural influence and collaboration. Fascinating because I have seen East Africa. I have relationships with several of her tribe members, including a brother-in-law and a contemporary artist I call friends. I am a visual artist who cannot escape including Africa’s imprint in my artwork and my life work. It is tricky because it is difficult to talk about an artist’s motivation and process, to talk about psychology and spirit and not just aesthetics and formal structure. It is tricky because even the vocabulary involved in the discussion has been heavily debated and evolved: “tribal” or “primitive”, “cross-cultural” or “intercultural”, “affinity” or “influence”?

The following pages are my attempt to begin making sense of my world of art and affinity through the lens of that which has influenced me greatly, the peoples of Africa. I believe these intercultural discussions are relevant and crucial to opening lines of communication in this current age of global awareness. I believe contemporary artists and society in general will be stagnated and paralyzed by cultural misunderstanding if these issues are not taken seriously. Referring specifically to the idea of global exhibition, Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare states, “the global exhibition expresses a continuing convergence of the world (Oscar Wilde said, ‘the true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes, and he annexes everything’). It remains a better sphere for conflict in an increasingly dangerous global world, whereby distancing ourselves from others we risk real cultural misunderstanding—which is always inevitably fatal” (November 2003 Artforum 212). Realistically, most artists will not have the chance at global exhibition, but the point remains that this exploration of intercultural understanding through the arts is crucial.

In order to do this I will first tackle the semantics, discussing definitions and preferences in relating the art of Africa to the art of the West. Next I will reflect on an (in)famous example of Africa’s influence by looking at a specific painting, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1906-7. I will lay out his supposed first experience of Africa and share his words and words of his colleagues pertaining to that influence. I will then contrast his experience of making with mine, how a particular collaborative project between Africans and Americans has made its way into my artwork and commitment to a life work.

The term “primitive” or “Primitivism” is explored at length by William Rubin in his essay Modernist Primitivism, an Introduction, the opening essay to an exhaustive catalog of the show at MOMA in 1984 entitled “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. He says that “while primitivism began its life as a specifically art-historical term, some American dictionaries subsequently broadened its definition. It appears for the first time in Webster in 1934 as a ‘belief in the superiority of primitive life’, which implies a ‘return to nature’. Within the expanded framework, Webster’s art-related definition is simply‘the adherence to or reaction to that which is primitive’. This sense of the word was evidently firmly entrenched by 1938 when Goldwater used it in the title of Primitivism in Modern Painting. The general consistency of all these definitions of primitivism has not, however, prevented certain writers from confusing primitivism (a Western phenomenon) with the arts of Primitive peoples. In view of this, we have drawn attention to the former’s very peculiar art-historical meaning by enclosing it within quotation marks in the title of our book…” (Rubin 2). He goes on to say that “the first decades of the twentieth century saw both a change in meaning and shrinkage in the scope of what was considered Primitive art. With the ‘discovery’ of African and Oceanic masks and figure sculptures by Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, and Picasso in the years 1906-7, a strictly modernist interpretation of the term began. As the fulcrum of meaning shifted toward tribal art, the older usages did not fall away immediately. ‘Primitive art’ simply became increasingly identified, during the following quarter-century, with tribal objects” (Rubin 3-4). And finally, “during the last two decades [approximately 1964-1984], the words Primitive and primitivism have been criticized by some commentators as ethnocentric and pejorative, but no other generic term proposed as a replacement for ‘primitivism’ has been found acceptable to such critics; none has even been proposed…that the derived term primitivism is ethnocentric is surely true—and logically so, for it refers not to the tribal arts in themselves, but to the Western interest in and reaction to them…Primitivism is thus an aspect of the history of modern art, not of tribal art…the notion that ‘primitivism’ is pejorative, however, can only result from a misunderstanding of the origin and use of the term, whose implications have been entirely affirmative” (Rubin 5).

I am thankful to Rubin for presenting his case so thoroughly, presenting so much detailed research. I am thankful that this particular show enabled exposure for ‘primitive’ art. I am grateful that Rubin’s catalog was my introduction to the dialogue of African influence. Yet underlying all the research I perceive an overwhelming sense of Western egotism, a dangerous connoisseurship. I sense that if Rubin were to meet a contemporary African artist, he wouldn’t quite know how to relate to him/her, wouldn’t quite know what to say. What’s missing is the relationship, the expressed opinion of an African about art and issues that are THEIRS, not OURS for the taking. This attitude is extremely subversive and prevalent, and is still propagated in art history books today: “Primitive is a somewhat unfortunate word…still, no other single term will serve us better. Let us continue, then, to use primitive as a convenient label for a way of life that has passed through the Neolithic Revolution but shows no signs of evolving in the direction of ‘historic civilizations’” (HW Janson’s History of Art, 1986). In a critique of the MOMA’s 1984 show, critic Thomas McEvilley states, “Of course, you can find lots of little things wrong with any big project if you just feel argumentative. But I am motivated by the feeling that something important is at issue here, something deeply, even tragically wrong. In depressing starkness, ‘Primitivism’ lays bare the way our cultural institutions relate to foreign cultures, revealing it as an ethnocentric subjectivity inflated to co-opt such cultures and their objects into itself…My real concern is that this exhibition shows Western egotism still as unbridled as in the centuries of colonialism and souvenirism. The museum pretends to confront the Third World while really co-opting it and using it to consolidate Western notions of quality and feelings of superiority” (November 1984 Artforum 164).

I am encouraged and inspired by the words of Sally Price in her work with the tribes of Suriname. She and her husband Richard have spent several years living there, researching the anthropology and art of this group forcefully brought as slaves from West Africa to South America. They have made a concerted effort to ask THEM what THEY THINK their art symbolizes, if anything. In her introduction to her book entitled Primitive Art in Civilized Places, Sally Price lays out two classes of definitions of “primitive”, one she sees as more legitimate, representing “formulations with authenticated provences”, and the other she perceives as “undertones” used to introduce some of the concerns in her book. Although a bit lengthy, I wish to include these definitions in my presentation:

Definition I:

• “We are dealing with the arts of people whose mechanical knowledge is scanty—the People Without Wheels” (Hooper and Burland, 1953)

• “Primitive art is produced by people who have not developed any form of writing” (Christensen, 1955)

• “Properly, it is the art of those people who have remained until recent times at an early technological level, who have been oriented toward the use of tools but not machines” (Douglas Newton cited in Kramer, 1982)

• “Now the term has simply come, for lack of a better term, to refer to art of classless societies” (Moberg, 1984)

Definition II:

• “Any tradition of visual art produced by mentally balanced adult humans that is regularly analyzed in the comparative context of drawings by apes, children, and the insane.

• Any art capable of evoking in Western viewers images of pagan rituals—particularly cannibalism, spirit possession, fertility rites, and forms of divination based on superstition.

• Any art made by persons who, in Westerner’s metaphorical imagery of the Family of Man, are regarded with affection as baby brothers, genetically related and genealogically equal but not yet trained to repress their natural urges in conformance with the rules of civilized behavior.

• Objects crafted before World War I within artistic traditions not represented in world art museums until after World War I (or its corollary: objects crafted before World War I within artistic traditions not represented in books on the history of art until after World War I).

• Any artistic tradition postdating the Middle Ages for which museum labels do not identify the artists of exhibited pieces (or its corollary: any artistic tradition postdating the Middle Ages for which museum labels give the dates of displayed objects in centuries rather than years).

• The art of peoples whose in-home languages are not normally taught for credit in universities.

• Any artistic tradition for which the market value of an object automatically inflates by a factor of ten or more upon export out of its original cultural setting” (Price 2-3).

I tend to give more credibility to these statements made by Price because she has immersed herself in Suriname’s culture. Inspired, I asked the Kenyans I know well to answer the following question:

“Julius and James, I am writing a big paper for a class comparing a piece of my art to a piece of Picasso’s art. Both of us are/were ‘Western’ artists ‘influenced’ by Africa and her art. My question has to do with vocabulary, words used to describe the art of Africa. The question for you both: What do you call masks, older sculptures, etc. made in Africa? What do you prefer to think is more accurate? ‘Primitive’? ‘Tribal’? ‘Traditional’? Some other words to describe this work, as opposed to more contemporary styles…? Thanks for your consideration” (email November 2003).

Julius Were responded first. He is my brother-in-law who has moved from Kenya to Kansas City this past year. He is not an artist, but is a keen observer of Kenyan culture especially now with the perspective of moving into the Western culture of the Midwestern United States. His response:

“Hi Josie, Glad to hear from you. Excited to learn you have chosen to write an art paper on ‘African art’. Your choice is untapped, less explored by many. Very non-traditional approach. Well from your few questions I confess I do not know that much about African art leave alone Kenyan art. Art in the part of the world I grew is some thing that majority look upon as something to belittle, un-important and not worth wasting money on. I have no words to describe it, you have to be in the environment to comprehend what I am trying to share. We have historical art work in Kenya but all picking dust behind a storage shelf some place…Any way let me not get passionate no more. James is much more capable of contributing insightful knowledge about African art that I can. ‘Mask’ is called ‘Kifuniko cha uso’, ‘sculpture’ is ‘sanamu ya kuchora’. Josie what I have described is in Kiswahili and the above are not the only words to desribe them coz they differ region to region. The appropriate and general word I would recommend is ‘Traditional’ coz it blends in perfect. ‘Primitive’ to me personally is offensive and a big no no coz it implies lack of knowledge or common sense. ‘Tribal’ will come can blend in with traditional. Kenya is a country with 42 tribes so using tribal will mean focusing on a single tribe out of the majority out there…” (email November 2003).

James Mutisya responded next. James is an artist working and living in Nairobi, Kenya. I had the opportunity to work collaboratively on a project for an orphanage in Huruma, Kenya at the Missionaries of Charity, described later. He had this to say in response to my email:

“Im sorry Josie for not writing soon. Im away from compure coz I have been moving to a new place of work. My home studio. Im making an effort to see that you get this answers though time is not waiting. To give you a hint of African art and meaning is this mask, they were used by worriors at war time. And also to represent spirits can be of hero or others. Sculptures were some used as a sign of gods and this gods were the power ful spirits though most of Africans referred to their god through great things like mountains like god of mt Kenya. Then we have the functional sculptures, like stool, and other house hold, remember the kings and chiefs had special tool and things to use. The witch doctors, craftsmen and medicine mane had their special charms which are now collection of art in many museums in the world. This is just a few, but if I will get time, I will try to answer more soon” (email November 2003).

I am intrigued that they both referred to the mask, probably the most common object seen in Western institutions as well as sold to the tourists around Kenya. I hope to continue dialogue with both men as to their perceptions of African art and how it is perceived in Western societies. This discussion has only just begun.

Picasso was intrigued by the African mask. So much so that he changed the faces of three out of five women to masks in his painting of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1906-7 after seeing an exhibit at the Trocadero, Musee d’Ethnographie. Hundreds of pages have been written about this particular painting, and mostly by Rubin, but I wish to focus on Picasso’s experience of the Musee d’Ethnographie and how the visit influenced Demoiselles. During his first visit, Picasso stumbled upon the exhibition of traditional African art. He returned several times, often bringing friends. Rubin writes,

“Picasso’s accounts of this visit (and several that followed) suggest that he was able to wander quite freely. His first instinct, given his disgust with the place itself, was to flee. But something would not let him take his eyes off the tribal material, and he remained. When he finally left, it was with a feeling of relief. He thought at first it was because something not altogether comfortable or pleasant—indeed, something profoundly disturbing had been happening to him inside. The words he would use to and reuse with Malraux, myself, and others—‘shock’, ‘revelation’, ‘charge’, and ‘force’ make clear that he had experienced both a trauma and an epiphany” (Rubin 244-245).

Rubin continues,

“Picasso’s admittedly galvanic reaction to his Trocadero visit was surely the inspiration for the ‘second campaign’ of work on the Demoiselles, which thus would have resulted from a renewed and more extensive confrontation with tribal art at precisely the moment he was casting about for an adequate visual idea to embody his dark forebodings and private terrors. Not by accident did he later characterize the Demoiselles as his ‘first exorcism picture.’ ‘For me the [tribal] masks were not just sculptures’, Picasso told Malraux, ‘they were magical objects…intercessors…against everything—against unknown, threatening spirits…they were weapons—to keep people from being ruled by spirits, to help free themselves…if we give a form to these spirits, we become free’” (Rubin 255).

After reading books and essays and letters and Picasso’s own words, I am sure Picasso’s painting was influenced formally by African works. I also believe he was drawn to the spirit in these objects to a certain extent, even finding them magical for a time. Formally, this African influence birthed Cubism. But intuitively, I have to conclude that any magic Picasso might have experienced in African works was eventually shelved and gathered dust, much like the African pieces he collected in his studio. I come to this conclusion because my own experience of Africa, her peoples, and her art have gone to my depths, not only influencing the formal aspects of my artwork, but transforming what I perceive as my life work (seeing an inextricable link between formal art making and collaboration through community involvement). Picasso never set foot in Africa, never even met an African as far as I can tell. I don’t think it even occurred to him to further explore Africa in Africa. There are 100 years between Picasso’s Western culture and my own. Picasso was a male artist who hung around other male artists and poets and critics, who was obsessed with the sexual female body, who lived and worked in a segregated and compartmentalized society at the turn of the century. I am a female artist who hangs around male, female, black, white, American, and non-American artists and non-artists, who lives and works in an increasingly global society concerned with building intercultural bridges even as the concept of terrorism threatens to burn them down.

Comparing me and my century to Picasso and his is obviously difficult and complex. My world is operating under a different and multi-layered paradigm: “artworld traffic is now recognized as running along a much busier thoroughfare. We’re forced to notice that it’s not a one-way route and that it’s not just the objects that are traveling. While Picasso’s exploitation of African masks as inspiration for the prostitutes in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon may have caused European art history to turn a corner in the early years of the twentieth century, today’s appropriative possibilities are being defined in more multi-faceted terms” (Price 130). I can only next relay my experience of African spirit and its influence in my own work.

On July 28th, 1995 I first encountered the Missionaries of Charity compound in Huruma, Kenya, a training center for Sisters of the Catholic faith founded by Mother Teresa. Once trained, these Sisters then go to one of several compounds in East Africa to care for sick and/or dying orphans, men, and women:

“I can stomach many things, but today has been overwhelming on the senses, especially after Mama T’s home. After driving through the neighborhoods of tin shacks, we pulled up to a big blue gate. Many folks had to get out of the way. As soon as we came in I saw a couple hundred women and children sitting rows. Sue Anne said they were waiting for lunch, that they had to eat there to prevent them from selling food on the street! There was a church for the public, some housing for men and women and the elderly—but we spent the morning with the toddlers and newborns, encountering the disabled youngsters a bit, too. Just heart-wrenching. For the first 30 minutes I was there, I just cried. As I touched each head and held out my hand, I cried for these precious souls that had been abandoned, left at the gate, thrown in garbage piles. Several were HIV positive. Baby Charles is dying—the smallest, sickest baby I’ve ever seen. Huge gorgeous brown eyes that looked into me so deeply. Remember their faces, Margaret, Anna, Lydia, James, Mary, Veronica. All we could do was sit and hold them in the sun; hold the newborns and walk around the nursery. The way they reached up to us made me acutely aware of how much we need touch to survive. And I just cried.”

This first experience of the orphanage led to several more. I have taken groups of Americans to meet these beautiful and impoverished Kenyans, to put real faces and relationships on what had previously been stereotypical images of starving fly-infested naked African children seen on television commercials for fundraising purposes. My own artwork makes icons of particular children I encountered: Patrik, Facique, Anton (illustrations 2-4). I am attempting to tell their stories.

But this wasn’t enough for me; swooping in for a few weeks at a time, feeding and holding children for a few weeks at a time, returning to the studio and making a few artworks about the experience. In the summer of 2001, I returned to Huruma with a group of artists and therapists. We knew we wanted to transform an area of the orphanage into a playground, but did not know how it was to unfold until we got to Kenya. I took the group to visit the National Museum, one of the only museums of art and anthropology in Kenya. Across the street, but still on the grounds of the museum, we came upon a cooperative studio name Kuona Trust for local sculptors. I was deep in conversation with a local printmaker, discussing his use of religious imagery, when I looked over and spotted my colleague, artist Hugh Merrill. He was sitting in a circle with several of the sculptors. I could tell they were men deep in negotiation. (Although I was the organizer of this trip, it was Merrill and artist Denise Dipiazzo who directed the project; I served as an ambassador of sorts alongside my then future Kenyan brother-in-law, Julius Were).

Deals were made and for the next eight days, four of the sculptors met us at the orphanage where they carved three stunning animal totems with a few carving tools and pieces of chalk. James Mutisya emerged as the leader of this group, and is a friend and active community-oriented artist in Nairobi today. Meanwhile, Denise planned the layout of the playground and began to involve other trip members in painting. I split my time between caring for a room of malnourished kids and assuring the Sisters that the project would be a success for all involved.

The dedication of the playground was truly a celebration. The ribbon was cut and kids poured onto the playground, touching and climbing the totems. Hugh and Denise interviewed and videotaped James and the sculptors about their experience. Head Sister Fidence gave a touching speech representing the Huruma compound and I gave a teary speech of thanksgiving to represent my group of Americans.

To me, this collaborative community-based artwork seemed a beginning. There was much more I could have done to foster communication and dialogue between the American artists and the Kenyan artists. I continue to stay in contact with James, and hope to visit Nairobi again soon with a new group of American artists. I hope to work in even closer collaboration with him, encouraging his creative desires and leadership abilities in a city he calls home.

In conclusion, I refer back to the Price quote on the title page of this essay. It is time to open up to different modes of discourse. It is time for new connections to be made between the traditional art of native peoples and the impact it has on artists of the world, between authentically altruistic exploration and self-interested exploitation, between art on the walls of elitist institutions and community-based projects in the slums. It is time for new eyes and voices, those of women like me who tend to develop meaningful and fruitful relationships through patience and understanding, those of the art producers like James Mutisya who have most likely never been heard. Price quotes Edmund Carpenter: “Henry Moore [is said to have claimed that primitive art] ‘makes a straightforward statement, its primary concern is with the elemental, and its simplicity comes from direct and strong feelings…the most striking quality common to all primitive art is its intense vitality. It is something made by people with a direct and immediate response to life.’ Such statements are wrong. No matter how naked a people, no matter how tormented their situation, no one lives an ‘elemental’, ‘simple’, ‘direct’, ‘immediate’ life. People everywhere are pattern-makers and pattern-perceivers’ they live in symbolic worlds of their own creation (1983)” (Price 31).

Illustrations

1. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso, 1906-7.
2. St. Patrik’s Day, Josie Mai, 2002.
3. Facique, Josie Mai, 2002.
4. Anton, Josie Mai, 2002.
5. Kuona Trust sculpture cooperative, Nairobi, Kenya, June 2001.
6. Hugh Merrill in negotiations with Kenyan sculptors.
7. Sculptors at work at the orphanage in Huruma, Kenya.
8. Installation of totem carvings at the playground.
9. Artist James Mutisya.
10. Dedication of playground by Sister Fidence. Microphone held by Julius Were.
11. Installed carvings.
12. Celebration.

Bibliography

Griffin, Tim, Global Tendencies: “Globalism and the Large-Scale Exhibition”, James Meyer, moderator, panel: Francesco Bonami, Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Hans Ulrich-Obrist, Martha Rosler, Yinka Shonibare, Artforum November 2003.

McEvilley, Thomas, “Doctor Lawyer Indian Chief: ‘Primitivism’ in Twentieth Century Art at the Museum of Modern Art in 1984, Artforum November 1984.

Price, Sally, Primitive Art in Civilized Places, Second Edition, The University of Chicago Press, 1989, afterword 2001.

Rubin, William, “Primitivism” in Twentieth Century Art ‘Affinity of the Tribal and Modern’ v.1, Museum of Modern Art in New York, 1984.