African Art

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African Art

• Another brief and sketchy overview of a
  complicated topic on which one could spend an
  entire semester

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Main Forms of African Art

• Wood carving
• Verbal art
• Music
• Dance

Generally, all these forms come together through
the performing arts.
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Social Aspects of African Art

• Intimately associated with social life and
  religious beliefs.
• African art is meant to be used in rituals and
  ceremonies (not hung on the wall or put in glass
  cases) and is discarded after use.
• How do we see these elements in Afikpo Igbo
  masquerades?

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Afikpo Igbo Masquerades

• What is the social role of the masquerades? What
  are the skits accomplishing?
• Why do young men see long-term rewards in the
  status quo? p. 445
• How are the skits similar to witchcraft
  accusations among the Tiv?

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No pure traditional African art

• Hybridization constantly bringing in new forms
  from outside.
• Novelty and innovation always been part of
  African artistic traditions.

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Sophiatown, 1940s-1960s

• Black residential area with flourishing
  performing arts scene, under apartheid.
• Black South Africans looked to African-Americans
  as a model of an international urban black
  culture and imitated jazz music, swing, and other
  African-American musical idioms.
• They created a new sound with African and
  African-American melodies and rhythms and the use
  of Western instruments (trumpet, guitar, drumset,
  penny whistle).

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Hugh Masekela, 1939-
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Baaba Maal (Senegal), 1953-