Arts across Africa before 1600: An Ever-Growing Void?

In Cape Town, one of the origins of art sits in a gallery hidden within a winding exhibition on humanity geared at children at the Iziko South African Museum. Not much larger than a modern marker pen, a chunk of ochre found in the Blombos Cave bears gridded lines that testify to an unknown person's decisive mark-making some 73,000 years ago (Fig. 1). The so-called Lydenburg heads (ImiKrolo yeetNtloko yaseLydenburg), impressively scaled works sculpted from clay around 600 to 1000 CE, are similarly on view in this institution, which also displays dinosaur bones, taxidermied birds, and the trappings of what may generally be classified as a natural history museum. Less than a five-minute walk across the street, the mostly painted and sculpted works on view in the Iziko South African National Gallery were made by South African and other artists primarily from 1600 onwards. The institution's foundation in 1871 or 18721 during the British colonial period explains the lingering influence of Giorgio Vasari's sixteenth-century Italian privileging of sculpture and painting in the institution (Vasari 2008). While more recent inclusions of beadwork and textiles push against these material hierarchies, the gallery's definition of what is “art” and when is “art” remains focused on the last several centuries. With the acknowledgement that these two South African institutions were founded in and are actively evolving within distinctive political, economic, and social contexts, the present-day dichotomy remains noticeable. So too does the fact that only once, over forty years ago, have these historic and deeply historical examples of African arts have ever been published in the pages of this journal (Maggs and Davison 1981).This special issue addresses an underrepresented area in the field of African art history, and a related major gap within this journal: the era before 1600. The relative marginalization of this period has been a concern in the pages of African Arts since at least 2013, when the late art historian Sidney Kasfir penned an influential First Word, “The Disappearing Study of the Premodern African Past.” Kasfir's essay contextualized what she then saw as an impactful shift in scholarly inquiry: while Africanist art historians emphasized rural fieldwork in the 1970s and 1980s, by the 1990s Kasfir saw a change in priorities—particularly among graduate students—to studies of artmaking in urban centers, as well as broader examinations of diasporic arts and cultures. For Kasfir, these changes placed historical-focused investigations, especially those addressing the era before 1600, on the back burner of the discipline (Kasfir 2013: 4).Across the four subsequent issues of African Arts, Kasfir's essay elicited fourteen insightful responses in the journal's Dialogue section (vols. 46, no. 2–47, no. 1). Most contributors reflected on generational shifts, reaffirmed the importance of coupling contemporary and global study with historical analysis, and interrogated collective preoccupations with global and market-driven art. Others offered insightful commentary into discourses that continued to problematically link rurality with tradition and urbanity with contemporaneity (something Kasfir made clear). As a response and writing from a different angle, art historian Christopher Roy argued that curiosity should drive scholarship and student interest, not need or absence (Roy 2013: 10–11).Yet despite the significance and poignancy of these contributions, few directly engaged with the major issue that drove Kasfir's piece: the dearth of scholarship on what she termed the “premodern” past in African arts and expressive cultures. Those who did engage with this issue raised critical points. Art historian Ikem S. Okoye noted that a wide range of art historical subfields, not just Africanists, had begun flocking to the contemporary (Okoye 2013: 8). Meanwhile, writing from the same discipline's perspective, Maureen Murphy turned to the field's structure. She noted that African art history's continental and geographic focus exists in tension with the historically devised and movement-based organization of Western art historical fields; an ironic point, given that the existence of African art history as a discipline is “intimately linked to the history of the reception of those objects in the West” (Murphy 2013: 10). As such, she noted—in a line that underscores the motivations for this special issue—“To throw off the remnants of exoticism and even racialism implicit in the ‘Africanist’ category, it is necessary to study African arts from a more historical perspective” (Murphy 2013: 10). Constanze Weise, from the perspective of African history, pointed out that many struggle with understanding the stories of early Africa due to the lack of textual sources. Weise stated that, “It is here that African art historians can help in making these stories more accessible, not only to students but to a wider audience …” (Weise 2013: 6). Indeed, a viable way forward might be with cross-disciplinary collaboration between historians, art historians, archeologists, and anthropologists.Even though these exchanges took place in 2013, articles published in African Arts have shown a bias toward modern and contemporary periods since the journal's inception in 1967 as African Arts/Arts d'Afrique. In the first-ever issue, the editors of the then-bilingual (English-French) journal set forth a mission statement to create “a quarterly magazine devoted to the graphic, plastic performing, and literary arts of Africa, traditional and contemporary. Our purpose is to record the art of the African past, to provide an outlet for the contemporary African artist, and to stimulate the creative arts in Africa” (Fig. 2). But how did the editors who conceived this journal, and those who would come to fill its pages over the decades, understand what was meant by “the art of the African past?”In preparation for this issue, the Miami University (Ohio) board editors analyzed the historical and geographic scope of articles published in African Arts since its inception. We collectively calculated how often articles focused on one of seven historical periods (pre-1600, 1600–1700, 17001800, 1800–1880, 1880–1960, 1960–2000, and 2000-present), as well as which country was an article's predominant area of focus (a schema that made cross-cultural and exhibition essays difficult to place). These choices were pragmatic, rather than scholarly. For example, using temporal major eras (such as independence-era or postwar) could possibly introduce imprecision given their debated ranges and uneven application, and—given our early sense of the date range of articles—would also have resulted in skewed data for articles covering the last two hundred years.We quickly learned that defining what counts as an “article” is difficult. Especially before the 1990s, African Arts often published short reviews and summary essays, as well field-researched-based essays with plentiful photographs and descriptions, but contrastingly little analysis. These works were necessary within the publication to describe new areas for further research, but it often meant for our analysis that we had to make judgment calls about what counted as “substantive” scholarship. We also did not include exhibition previews or collection overviews, where mentions of specific pre-1600 works may have been more prevalent. It is hard to pinpoint a specific date for the initiation of peer review, as it is currently understood, in this journal, with movement toward a formal review system taking place in the late 1980s and early 1990s.2 However, current standards for what submissions receive peer review also guided our decisions in this analysis, which should not be understood as exacting or authoritative. Yet we found two broad conclusions taking into account historical and geographic data: African Arts has been effectively a journal of modern and contemporary art history with a strong bias toward the arts of West Africa.Geographic nomenclature followed usage at the time of publication. Western Africa accounted for 56% of all the journal's articles, with 29% of all articles published about Nigerian arts alone (Fig. 3). The 330 articles published on Nigeria far outnumber the next most commonly considered countries: South Africa (104), Ghana (97), Democratic Republic of Congo (75), Mali (54), Cameroon (40), and Sierra Leone (36). By contrast, the art of ten African nations has never been the subject of a dedicated article in the journal: Sahrawi (the Western Sahara, as recognized by the African Union), South Sudan, the Seychelles, Mauritius, Mauritania, Djibouti, Comoros, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Cabo Verde (though Cabo Verdean literature was the subject of Albert Gérard's 1968 interpretive essay, from when the journal's focus extended beyond visual arts).On the temporal side, the resulting data support the title of this First Word: not including those contained in this issue, only 50 of the over 1,100 articles published in African Arts since its inception have focused on the period prior to 1600; indeed, only 63 articles total have primarily considered material prior to 1800 (Fig. 4). As a result, studies of the modern and contemporary period have dominated: over 88% of all articles published in African Arts cover material since 1880.Yet, the de facto status of African Arts as a journal of modern and contemporary art history has gone largely unacknowledged. Early issues of the journal, especially in the 1960s, utilized a broad interpretation of “arts.” This included literature, theater, film, and poetry. Many of these were closely tied to the emergence of “national” cultures in the post-independence era across the continent. When pre-1600 arts were covered, archeological materials were well represented: pottery from Meroë; the ruins of Great Zimbabwe; South African rock art; and archaeological studies of Ile-Ife. Complementing archaeological considerations were some texts on oral traditions and the so-called Benin bronzes (actually works in brass, ivory, wood, coral, and other materials). By the 1970s and 1980s, as the journal's authors and editors began to turn more toward the visual arts, the pages of African Arts saw a broader emergence of descriptive essays and articles, combining contemporary fieldwork with photography, visual, and contextual analyses of objects and often related time-based phenomena like masquerades from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.This kind of “salvage anthropology” meant that many contributions suffered from a dehistoricizing “ethnographic present” angle that makes it difficult to determine the actual age of objects and practices. Indeed, even through the 1990s, dates rarely were published alongside objects and photographs in African Arts, while references to a historical African “past” ranged up to the early twentieth century. Today, what might it mean to acknowledge the journal's longstanding privileging of the modern and contemporary? Is this a bias to be corrected? African Arts exists in an academic publishing space distinctive from both its 1960s origins and from the past few decades. Fewer spaces exist for publishing on historical topics with the 2021 closure of the journal Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture (founded 2007). From 1994, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art has focused on arts of the here and now. How then might we understand African Arts' simultaneous privileging of the modern and contemporary, in contrast to the work of Nka? Of the 422 African Arts articles published including and after 2001, nearly 50% examine the post-2000 period, and nearly 80% the period since 1960. Returning to the founding statement of the first 1967 issue, the past appears to be far closer to the present in this publication. While further analysis is needed to consider the training of authors, it could be hypothesized that the strong links between the discipline of anthropology and the foundations of Africanist art history in the West may have set this temporal leaning into motion (Adams 1989; BenAmos 1989).Yet the question remains: why study African art history before 1600, and why publish on it? Our goal in this First Word, and indeed this special issue, is to highlight the continued importance of pre- 1600 African arts to the present. For some artists today, this deep heritage serves as a place of departure and inspiration. At the same time, the study of African arts before 1600 fundamentally interrogates the founding of our field. As many art historians (scholars, curators, professors) presently demonstrate through their research, the study of pre-1600 art challenges the assumption that African history is either unknowable or irrelevant before the mass arrival of European merchants on the Atlantic coast, who wrote both accounts and fictions of Africa in European languages. Instead, the era before the seventeenth century highlights indigenous oral systems of knowledge and written accounts such as the Sorabe script used for the Malagasy language from the 1400s (Fig. 5) or royal chronicles and other texts written in Gǝ'ǝz in a language and script that before the accounts in which across the and the by the century CE, are also critical to the study of this the title of Kasfir's First this era as the does not in she for Kasfir's remains with the European of Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This in the of studies the of in different of the before the of European on the West African in the As the and in present-day of between the and and here we that like Mali and used and to their influence and across the through the century. We not here to with but rather to that the study of pre-1600 era of and that most of in to of African in the the Sahara, the across the of the on these and eras to what historian as of the most of European “a of African history and cultures prior to the late nineteenth century In this the study of pre-1600 African art global and of the and that the period, especially as as in the Atlantic and the of sources. In this the period before the seventeenth century also the the historical of the era of European the and by the Atlantic African of the Atlantic and the of written historical for those in and Africa in the European colonial period and come to the of Africanist art history in and the The scholarly focus on these and in this journal, is in by how contemporary remains deeply by the and contributions of and African from the century This might of that a time, historians in the West have the Atlantic as the of with and in the study or exhibition of the arts of the which linked of with Africa, especially its examples of and art have similarly been little in their African indeed, have rarely in the pages of African Arts, even as art history remains published and even to the field of art history back to the early nineteenth when argued that Africa could be into including Africa” and with the as history to from and both from a wider African past, to the Maureen Murphy interrogated in response to Kasfir's First which have been further in other contributions to the may also to the The African of to the and continued influence of the African past also to to the wider continent. the of that in the Miami University (Ohio) a First Word, Africa and in Art and noted that in recent has been to the between Africa and the of the with a focus on including in the pre-1600 and critical make it necessary to study both from an academic perspective and as a as many around the turn or against those beyond their as pointed out ago, the of Western historians and their with or European history have to that Africa is an Yet as most African a of historical are and the of oral and archaeological and art historical can be a However, the past with work that is difficult from many students at and and historical and archaeological time, and The by or of some further this for example, to in Gǝ'ǝz have only in the since The same challenges by students is also for and more in their could be to more for global to publish more work from but African institutions have these and have how and what is and how the African past can be challenges and scholarship are to some found across the discipline of art history, what area or time period one of and to or lack are of major across scholarly and is that the arts made across Africa a this is the with which we are often in many of our or academic where is only a to the within an of African art often not have the of that most of our who work on the In and academic are often in the as to the modern and contemporary more the on the of arts and in new and how we and support the of what we and this issue, we also a among the and of African Arts as well as a of curators, a wide range of from different about their training and We responses out of While nearly of their training included the study of African material before 1600, the had published on or work from this period, and only it was of their current or We that these are skewed since those with training in this area may have been more to to the as one much of the bias toward materials may from where “the fact that most the to of pre-1600 we would and with This same noted and as to this but pointed we art is often from the of the continent. that even their training included pre- 1600 it was rarely and that it was for students to focus on this responses and Great as more is needed to determine the to which new on these areas are not to African and the de facto for new work in these their historical focus meant like an in and often at while their pre-1600 training had to be largely and that their historical focus with their history The challenges our discipline are indeed far and not to those specific to in pre-1600 topics and that the field has the the publication of Kasfir's First Word, African art history and its related have several contributions where the focus deep historical analysis of arts, including but not and in the late and have also a of that focused in or in on arts made before 1600. This of in and Africa by the of Art Art and on the of the by The of and Africa and by The of Art and The of These impressively included with contributions from authors across Africa, and at in late the exhibition to this forward by “the between cultures and those of Africa and over a broad 600 While not a the in for this of the contributions during the era exhibition reviews were not included in our data analysis, were historically reviews of these in African across the of and and the of the contributions of those who to create the first of major in and the and of and about expressive cultures of the African the art historical is one of the most impactful to the broad of that the and place Africa in the global past and present of and This special issue to from the of recent and to our consider and out more articles, essays, and exhibition previews on the before the issue articles and an exhibition focused on pre-1600 as well as a that from the to the century. the for contributions on pre-1600 art this resulted in a strong of articles focused on art. 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