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Masks and Modernities

Profile image of C. GoreC. Gore

2008, African Arts

https://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR.2008.41.4.1
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Abstract

Masks and Modernities by Charles Gore Masquerade and masking traditions in Africa have been an iconic subject of African art studies throughout the twentieth century and often have served to underline historical continuities with a precolonial past. At the beginning of the twentieth century such artifacts were a key aspect of African, and especially West African, traditions of visual (and performance) practice that became entwined with a new modernist avant garde developing in Paris. These European artists were seeking new modes of representation that challenged the naturalistic conventions of mainstream art. They looked at African art that could be found museums, such as the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadero founded in 1878 (now the Musée de l'Homme) as well as in curio shops, and found parallels, if not inspiration, in the rendering of form with their own projects. Such was their interest that it is perhaps unsurprising that one of the seminal paintings of this new rendering of modernity, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, completed by Picasso in 1907, featured mask-like visual conventions in one of the women's heads. Compositionally it drew on an exoticized image from the French photographer Fortier's body of work taken in West Africa. Within its shallow picture space, the women's angular forms echo both Etruscan and some West African visual conventions and herald the emergence of Cubism as a fullfledged art movement. This engagement with African masking traditions by modernist artists from all continents continued in diverse ways throughout the twentieth century and to the present day, developed to a range of modernist intentions and within various art movements. In the slippage within Western ideas of personhood between resemblance and masking, these modernist conventions became one element in the iconographic tactics of modernist portraiture and its modes of representing the individual. (In the European history of ideas it is well established that notions of the self are derived from Greek and Roman theater.) However, different positionings were taken up by artists within these art movements, and this had a particular relevance for artists of (continued on page 4

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In contrast, in Nigeria the specificities of local visual traditions were investigated by modernist artists such as Ben Enonowu, who in some works evoked his personal experi- ences of Igbo masquerade through a natural- istic style. This was developed by the Natural Synthesis movement, the Nigerian artists who emerged in the late 1950s and who looked to appropriate a range of localized visual tradi- tions to replace the prior iconography of colo- nial and colonized modernist art. Artists such as Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya, and oth- ers drew on a variety of visual forms, including diverse local practices of masquerade. This cursory thumbnail sketch of various trajectories and their positionings in relation to African arts flags up an encounter shaped hegemonically by Western assumptions,
In contrast, in Nigeria the specificities of local visual traditions were investigated by modernist artists such as Ben Enonowu, who in some works evoked his personal experi- ences of Igbo masquerade through a natural- istic style. This was developed by the Natural Synthesis movement, the Nigerian artists who emerged in the late 1950s and who looked to appropriate a range of localized visual tradi- tions to replace the prior iconography of colo- nial and colonized modernist art. Artists such as Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya, and oth- ers drew on a variety of visual forms, including diverse local practices of masquerade. This cursory thumbnail sketch of various trajectories and their positionings in relation to African arts flags up an encounter shaped hegemonically by Western assumptions,
MISSIONS AFRICAINES, 150, Cours GaMBEtTTa, Lyon. NAWUABEY _ Mancac maeniHaec 4 Fannansada Although field collections were carried out in Africa by metropole museums as standard practice throughout the twentieth century, it was William Bascom in the US and William Fagg in the UK who helped enable the ethno- graphic turn to in-depth investigation of local contexts, with a key emphasis on learning and understanding local categories of visual practice, irrespective of their compatibility or lack to those developed out of Western art histories. This also provided a springboard for interdisciplinary approaches and cross- cultural comparisons both within Africa and between continents in ways that have enriched the wider discipline of art history per se. Pub- ication of The Artist in Tribal Society (1961), such was the success of this ethnographic turn, especially in African art studies in Amer- ica, that it is beyond my scope to enumer- ate all the pioneers who developed these new approaches and paradigms. One only has to look at back issues of African Arts itself to dis- cern many of these trailblazers. I single out one example out of many other excellent stud- ies, simply because of the particular kinds of cross-cultural pleasure it has given me over the years: Leon Siroto’s article “Gon: A Mask Used in Competition for Leadership among the Bakwele” (from a seminal collection of essays, African Art and Leadership, edited by Douglas Fraser and Herbert Cole, published in 1972) which offers a historical trajectory of the developments and transformations of one masking tradition found in the Gabon.
MISSIONS AFRICAINES, 150, Cours GaMBEtTTa, Lyon. NAWUABEY _ Mancac maeniHaec 4 Fannansada Although field collections were carried out in Africa by metropole museums as standard practice throughout the twentieth century, it was William Bascom in the US and William Fagg in the UK who helped enable the ethno- graphic turn to in-depth investigation of local contexts, with a key emphasis on learning and understanding local categories of visual practice, irrespective of their compatibility or lack to those developed out of Western art histories. This also provided a springboard for interdisciplinary approaches and cross- cultural comparisons both within Africa and between continents in ways that have enriched the wider discipline of art history per se. Pub- ication of The Artist in Tribal Society (1961), such was the success of this ethnographic turn, especially in African art studies in Amer- ica, that it is beyond my scope to enumer- ate all the pioneers who developed these new approaches and paradigms. One only has to look at back issues of African Arts itself to dis- cern many of these trailblazers. I single out one example out of many other excellent stud- ies, simply because of the particular kinds of cross-cultural pleasure it has given me over the years: Leon Siroto’s article “Gon: A Mask Used in Competition for Leadership among the Bakwele” (from a seminal collection of essays, African Art and Leadership, edited by Douglas Fraser and Herbert Cole, published in 1972) which offers a historical trajectory of the developments and transformations of one masking tradition found in the Gabon.
a secret association and its trans-community networks offered modes of resistance diffi- cult to monitor and respond to. Interestingly, many parallels were made by such individuals between masquerade and European institu- tions, whether modes of schooling, military organization, the judiciary, or even, especially, as “native plays,” in order to emphasize the creative and aesthetic components of mas- querades’ display, performance, and drama. expectations, and agendas. Masks captured the European modernist sensibility. How- ever, Picasso, Braque, Nolde, Kirchner, and other avant garde artists who worked during the heyday of the colonial scramble for Africa did not contest the ideologies that under- pinned that expansion, ideologies that offered Darwinian-derived evolutionist hierarchies applied to societies and cultures within sup- posedly scientific (or rather pseudo-scientific) schemata of racialized difference. These sche- mata placed European societies at the pinnacle and noncentralized African (and Oceanic) communities at the bottom end of the scale and so in need of civilizing. Avant garde artists drew on the assumptions of raw energy and physicality embodied in the concept of “primi- tivism’, used to represent such African com- munities in order to critique the alienated and superficial world of the European bourgeoisie, along with the clichéd visual conventions that defined their arts of (supposed) “civilization”. On the other hand, it was these same artists who radically recognized the creative dimen- sions in African artifacts and pioneered an attention to their aesthetic and visual capabili- ties, even if still construed within Western art categories, however modernist. It also needs to be noted that African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance offered sites of resistance within these early modernist discourses.
a secret association and its trans-community networks offered modes of resistance diffi- cult to monitor and respond to. Interestingly, many parallels were made by such individuals between masquerade and European institu- tions, whether modes of schooling, military organization, the judiciary, or even, especially, as “native plays,” in order to emphasize the creative and aesthetic components of mas- querades’ display, performance, and drama. expectations, and agendas. Masks captured the European modernist sensibility. How- ever, Picasso, Braque, Nolde, Kirchner, and other avant garde artists who worked during the heyday of the colonial scramble for Africa did not contest the ideologies that under- pinned that expansion, ideologies that offered Darwinian-derived evolutionist hierarchies applied to societies and cultures within sup- posedly scientific (or rather pseudo-scientific) schemata of racialized difference. These sche- mata placed European societies at the pinnacle and noncentralized African (and Oceanic) communities at the bottom end of the scale and so in need of civilizing. Avant garde artists drew on the assumptions of raw energy and physicality embodied in the concept of “primi- tivism’, used to represent such African com- munities in order to critique the alienated and superficial world of the European bourgeoisie, along with the clichéd visual conventions that defined their arts of (supposed) “civilization”. On the other hand, it was these same artists who radically recognized the creative dimen- sions in African artifacts and pioneered an attention to their aesthetic and visual capabili- ties, even if still construed within Western art categories, however modernist. It also needs to be noted that African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance offered sites of resistance within these early modernist discourses.
In brief, it traces how a particular masquer- ade was utilized to kill domesticated animals for a major festival held to encourage com- munal solidarity, despite these animals being primarily reserved for gift exchange to procure spouses for the young single male members of the lineage. This masquerade was constructed as a wild being from the forest that ran amok on its brief visit to the village during the festiv- ities, killing all animals in its path as part of its innate disposition. This meant that no blame could be attributed to any member of the community for the death of the slaughtered animals that then provided the fresh meat to share out and enhance the communal festival. The dramatic artifice of masquerade avoided provoking disputes, if not fission, of the lin- eage by disgruntled younger male members whose wherewithal to gain a spouse had been jeopardized.
In brief, it traces how a particular masquer- ade was utilized to kill domesticated animals for a major festival held to encourage com- munal solidarity, despite these animals being primarily reserved for gift exchange to procure spouses for the young single male members of the lineage. This masquerade was constructed as a wild being from the forest that ran amok on its brief visit to the village during the festiv- ities, killing all animals in its path as part of its innate disposition. This meant that no blame could be attributed to any member of the community for the death of the slaughtered animals that then provided the fresh meat to share out and enhance the communal festival. The dramatic artifice of masquerade avoided provoking disputes, if not fission, of the lin- eage by disgruntled younger male members whose wherewithal to gain a spouse had been jeopardized.
During the late 1980s, when I used to travel eastwards from Benin City in Nigeria during the festive seasons (the days after Christmas, at Easter, and during the new yam harvest time), squashed in interstate shared taxis, I was always struck by the sheer numbers and diver- sity of masquerades one would see performing along the roadside or at a distance in the vil- lage squares. As the taxi sped by with complete disregard for road conditions and safety, these However, the paradigms developed in Afri- can art studies for masquerade, at least for Nigeria where much of the earlier research was carried out, merit scrutiny, as its localized rela- tionships to the wider community have shifted in these changing circumstances. Rather than a mode for representing and constituting com- munity, it is now often a site for contestation between differing local factions with incom- mensurate agendas and competing claims to modernity—such as by Pentecostalists com- pared with masquerading youth. At the same time federal (and national) state-sponsored cultural performances broker particular kinds
During the late 1980s, when I used to travel eastwards from Benin City in Nigeria during the festive seasons (the days after Christmas, at Easter, and during the new yam harvest time), squashed in interstate shared taxis, I was always struck by the sheer numbers and diver- sity of masquerades one would see performing along the roadside or at a distance in the vil- lage squares. As the taxi sped by with complete disregard for road conditions and safety, these However, the paradigms developed in Afri- can art studies for masquerade, at least for Nigeria where much of the earlier research was carried out, merit scrutiny, as its localized rela- tionships to the wider community have shifted in these changing circumstances. Rather than a mode for representing and constituting com- munity, it is now often a site for contestation between differing local factions with incom- mensurate agendas and competing claims to modernity—such as by Pentecostalists com- pared with masquerading youth. At the same time federal (and national) state-sponsored cultural performances broker particular kinds
This special issue is based on a workshop, held at the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom conference in 2006, that focused on masquerade in the twenty- first century. The British authors’ approaches have been shaped by the work and teaching of Emeritus Professor John Picton (SOAS), a consulting editor of this journal, who has written extensively on masquerade among the Ebira people in Nigeria, emphasizing that masquerade brings together a configuration of the visual, textual, and performative. The- matically, this special issue considers a range of masquerade practice across southern Nige- ria and its western border to explore ongoing innovation and change in the making of local modernities. The rise of Pentecostal Christian (and new Islamization) movements in Nige- ria has marginalized many masking traditions as bound up with a pagan past. Despite the ending of some traditions of masquerade as a consequence of these religious movements, this displacement has created new and diverse possibilities, so that masquerade remains a vital medium of creativity and performance that offers counter-narratives of modernity, locality, and the translocal. The close regional
This special issue is based on a workshop, held at the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom conference in 2006, that focused on masquerade in the twenty- first century. The British authors’ approaches have been shaped by the work and teaching of Emeritus Professor John Picton (SOAS), a consulting editor of this journal, who has written extensively on masquerade among the Ebira people in Nigeria, emphasizing that masquerade brings together a configuration of the visual, textual, and performative. The- matically, this special issue considers a range of masquerade practice across southern Nige- ria and its western border to explore ongoing innovation and change in the making of local modernities. The rise of Pentecostal Christian (and new Islamization) movements in Nige- ria has marginalized many masking traditions as bound up with a pagan past. Despite the ending of some traditions of masquerade as a consequence of these religious movements, this displacement has created new and diverse possibilities, so that masquerade remains a vital medium of creativity and performance that offers counter-narratives of modernity, locality, and the translocal. The close regional

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