Arts of Africa

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Week Three

This week we read an article titled “The Radiance of the King” by Donald Cosentino. This article was about some contemporary Ghanaian paintings. Donald talked about how earlier paintings were utilitarian and many times about movies. There was a time in the late 90’s when these paintings faded because of other items like the chalkboard or computer. But at the start of the 21st century painting was back in style. It was said that, “these guys paint because they can’t help it. It’s therapy. It’s what they are born to do” (Cosentino). These new paintings were made with a lot of meaning. The artists were free to put their own spin on things, to have their thoughts/beliefs be put into paintings.
Something that I found interesting was that earlier on all they had was cinema movies to paint from, but now they have the television to go off of and that gives them a huge range of media to go off of. This also means that they get information much quicker from around the world.
In the beginning of the article it mentioned that these paintings were, “…ambassador(s) of cross-cultural pollination.” There is a lot of cross-culture in the Obama paintings in the article. Since they were made in Africa and the images are of our type of government and our political leaders it does have a crossing of cultures. Images of the American flag appear many times in these paintings along with other government symbols including the white house. So it is obvious that much of our culture and its ideas are being brought to Africa in some way. After reading this article it would seem that some parts of Africa were infatuated with Obama.
I can also possibly see cross-cultural pollination in some of the Ghanaian textiles. Of course there are the printed textiles of political figures like Roosevelt, Churchill, or Obama. But there is also the cell-phone which eventually got to Africa from another culture. Or there is the idea that Britain’s brought tea to Africa. And then some Africans used the tins to make tin stencils for their textiles. There is also an ethnic group called the Tuaregs that give tea to their guests. This idea of serving tea may have come from another culture. Another example could be the backed chairs for the hene(s). It may have been that it was stools that were used first and then the Portuguese may have brought the backed chair over.
Overall I believe that there is a lot of cross-culture pollination going on at all times. If people have access to visual culture it is almost impossible to not be an object of cross-culture pollination. I think that just based on that fact that I am writing about another culture and how it may have an influence on the way that I think is an example of cross-culture pollination.

4 comments:

  1. I agree with you that 'cross-culture pollination is going on at all times'. It is almost hard for it not to be, with all the new technology of todays society. Like you mentioned about television, it is now easier and faster for information to spread. In my blog I also mentioned that cross-culture pollination is most likely happening in every culture. I think this is a good thing, because it gives other cultures something to relate to. For the Ghanaian paintings, we can relate to them because our president is being portrayed. It also creates diversity within a culture and helps them branch out and relate to other ideas that are spreading around the globe.

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  2. Good summary, and good to mention textiles. It would be good to note the "cross" (exchange) part of this pollination. How is the US impacted by these Ghanaian paintings?

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  3. Katie, very nice point you made about the evolution of paintings in Ghana and the fact that there was an original purpose for those paintings, which shifted over time due to local and outside forces. Another good observation was that cross pollination takes place in almost all aspects of life. Every practice, style, or tradition possibly has its roots in some other culture. Great job!

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  4. I agree with you that there has been some "cross-cultural" exchange between other countries and Africa in regards to African textiles. African artists become influenced by politcal leaders as well as the ever-growing technological advances among other things. These subjects become easy for African textile artists to use as stamps and in other forms of batik.

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