Museum der Weltkulturen, Frankfurt

African Arts, Winter, 2002 by Johanna Agthe

Question 1: The recent developments in the awareness and perception of contemporary African art has not changed the Museum der Weltkulturen's exhibition or collecting policy, which was established in 1991, before Galerie 37, the museum's venue for contemporary art worldwide, opened five years ago. It still holds to its guideline of 1985 that the contemporary is necessary both in its own right and as a complement to the collection of traditional art.

Galerie 37 was founded to prevent the work of contemporary artists from being subsumed under "ethnology." A visitor's comment reflects the controversy that led to its establishment:

This is a culturally fascist museum!
Why is there a separate Museum of
Modern Art for white artists & then a
museum for black Africans masquerading
under the guise of an anthropology
museum? In South Africa, black history
is included in the Natural History museum
& white history in the cultural
history museum. This is no different.
To put black artists in an anthropological
museum implies a Darwinian approach-that
Africans are less evolved,
farther back in the history of civilization.
I find much of this art no less
"Modern" than that in the MMK [Museum
of Modern Art]. Your stupid, fascist
museum propagates myths about
black Africans as less civilized. (English
in the original)

Our aim was to acquire examples of what is seen as art in Africa, being aware that there the art clientele is not identical to the general public. Jak Katarikawe, for example, is not much appreciated by his fellow artists in East Africa. His work was collected mainly by foreigners, who again differ from enthusiasts of Documenta, who like global art.

Question 2: This question of identification and classification first arose in 1986, when the museum asked Rev. Blum to collect in South Africa. It was then decided that he should not acquire works by white South African artists--that our limited funds should be used to favor those with fewer advantages. Documentation on this trip included interviews with white artists, mainly those who ran or supported art centers and were for the anti-apartheid cause. Since then (but before Galerie 37 was opened), artists of African origin who live in Germany occasionally showed their work at the museum. Recently the curator for Oceania presented pictures by Australian artists side by side with those by a German living in Australia whose work is inspired by Australian motifs and symbols.

Question 3: The present situation might lead to a split in the notion of the contemporary, a split between Western-approved and locally (African) approved art. The growing attention to transnational artists has certainly redefined contemporary African art for critics and the public, but not necessarily for curators. The Western orientation holds the danger of merely following trends, the African-based of becoming stagnant. Exchange between the two seems vital. The present impression is that frequently neither knows what is happening "outside" and thus is unable to decide where to go, what to develop. Some artists are patronized and given exhibitions without regard to the quality of their work, a charitable impulse that does not necessarily promote the state of contemporary African art. Those who consciously follow their own ideas and media will find satisfaction in themselves and frequently in customers who do not care about world trends.

Question 4: The response to this question again involves communication. Leaving out the even more complicated issue of the self-taught, platforms for the formally trained in Africa are in some cases lamentable: university libraries without books or journals that allow one to follow ongoing debates on developments; tutors who stick to what they studied decades ago and who have little access to (or interest in) global art. A lack of appreciation and understanding was sometimes the fate of those who returned home after going abroad--resulting in suicide in extreme cases. If it is ever possible to define and continuously redefine what African contemporary art is, or whether it exists at all, the effort will require familiarity with what is going on both ways, not dependence on a trend that may result in the artist of the moment being dropped when attention turns to the next trend.

Question 5: The "discovery" of African art was followed by amassing objects and trading them in the West, and, later, mass-producing fakes, copies, and disfigurations of the traditional forms. This history differs considerably from the slow appreciation of the contemporary. What in the former cases was a movement out of Africa has in the latter case become one into Africa (as notions of art and such things as techniques and teaching were introduced from outside).

Johanna Agthe

Former Curator, Africa Department

Museum der Weltkulturen

Frankfurt am Main