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The origins and relevance of postcolonialism in contemporary art from an

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Thesis · March 2016

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 Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology

Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies

The origins and relevance of postcolonialism in contemporary art

from an African perspective.

By

Peadar Jolliffe-Byrne

Submitted to Department of Design and Visual Art in candidacy for

the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Degree in Art 2016.

Declaration of Originality

This dissertation is submitted by the undersigned to the Institute of

Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire in partial fulfilment of the

examination for the BA Honours in Art 2016. It is entirely the author’s

own work except where noted and has not been submitted for any

award from this or any other educational institute.

Signed_____________________
Table of contents

List of illustrations 4

Introduction 5

Chapter 1 : An introduction to Otherness and 9

Postcolonialism

Chapter 2 : The story of Ibrahim El-Salahi 22

Chapter 3 : The growing trend of Postcolonialism in 32

contemporary art

Conclusion 42

Bibliography 46
List of Illustrations

1. Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon from The Apocalypse (1498),

by Albrecht Durer. Woodcut (38.5 x 27.7 cm). Metropolitan Museum of

Art.

2. The Turkish Bath (1862), by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Oil

on canvas (108 x 110 cm). The Louvre.

3. City Plot (2010), by El Anatsui. Aluminum liquor bottle caps and

copper wire (184 x 140 inches). Jack Shainman Gallery.

4. Leisure Lady (with Ocelots) (2001), by Yinka Shonibare. Life-size

fiberglass mannequin, three fiberglass ocelots, Dutch wax printed

cotton, leather, glass. Vanhaerents Art Collection.

5. Self-Portrait of Suffering (1961), by Ibrahim El-Salahi. Iwalewa-

Haus, University of Bayreuth.

6. Reborn Sound of Childhood Dreams (1961-5), by Ibrahim El-

Salahi. Enamel paint and oil paint on cotton (2588 x 2600 mm). Tate

7. The Tree (2003), by Ibrahim El-Salahi. Coloured inks on Bristol

board (76.5 x 76.5 cm). Private collection.

8. Ruffian Logistics (2001), by Julie Mehretu. Acrylic and ink on

canvas over panel (168 x 306 cm). The Project, New York Private

Collection.

9. Couleurs de peche (2000-2005), by Boubaca Toure Mandemory.

Colour gelatin silver print (50 x 60 cm). Private Collection

10. Scramble for Africa (2003), by Yinka Shonibare. 14 life-size

fibreglass mannequins, 14 chairs, table and Dutch wax printed cotton.

Pinnel Collection
Introduction
This thesis will evaluate the overall effects of postcolonialism and

Otherness in art and in the world we inhabit. It shall discuss the

origins of both postcolonialism and otherness and how each has

developed further to form a contemporary understanding of both

terms. Seeing as both terms can be used quite broadly, It will

concentrate primarily on regions in Africa that have been affected by

colonial rule and then in turn granted independance, and how this has

affected the people living in these countries and the artists who

comment on these political subjects.

These countries with their independance have been abandoned by

their previous colonial rulers and left with numerous amounts of

problems, politically and economically, which they have to deal with

without the resources once provided. This thesis hopes to shed light

on a number of artists and exhibitions that tackle this subject matter

of Otherness and postcolonialism.

The first chapter will help gain an understanding of Otherness by

giving the definition and examples of Otherness. It will show the

significance of different social constructs and identities within

different societies and how over time we have been conditioned to

live by these categorical stereotypes. These social dichotomies range

from differences in class indentities, gender indentities, ethnic

identities, cultural identities among others. A number of artists shall

be examined in the chapter with relation to theories of otherness and

postcolonialism. These artists range from the angel and demon

etchings of Albrecht Durer, to the Turkish bathers of Ingres all the way
to the contemporary postcolonial artists El Anatsui and Yinka

Shonibare. The etchings of Albrecht Durer highlight an existence and

recognition of oneself and the Other as back as the 1400's. Ingres

paintings highlight the human interest of culture and attraction to

that which is different to ones own. The art of El Anatsui and Yinka

Shonibare run a social commentary both historical and current. Their

work is a reflection of their ancestry.

The second chapter shall continue along the topic of 'othering' in a

more political form, examining the aesthetics and idea of 'the other'

from a postcolonial African perspective. It discusses in detail the

exhibition in TATE modern featuring the work of Ibrahim El-Salahi. This

chapter tells his remarkable story and quest to relieve Sudan and

Africa from its social sterotypes and postcolonial burdens. He has

made monumental contributions to the modernist movement through

his influential work as a writer and critic and also his explorations of

painterly strategies. His life is a remarkable story of which he

documents through his art and political understanding of an

international scale.

Staying on the topic of postcolonialism, the third and final chapter

shall look closely at a number of exhibitions, held over the last twelve

years that deal with the subject and topic of postcolonialism. It shall

continue with the focus upon Africa and its relationship with the West

and highlight the trend of subject matter.

As a whole this thesis intends for the reader to recognise the subject

of postcolonialism as a very significant and relevant topic to the

evolution of art practices across the globe; to acknowledge the

importance of colonial unjust, and the effects that are now occuring

culturally, economically and politically because of it. Cultural

belonging and identity are both subjects tackled by postcolonialism.

Native tradition and culture have been destroyed by colonial powers

coming into these foreign states and have replaced the native values

with their own. Conflict is then imminent as a result of countries

becoming independant and forced with the challenge of creating a

new identity as a nation. This is why art made to tackle this subject is

becoming so prominent and necessary in contemporary art and

contemporary life. It is the means to a solution of a problem that is

still relatively new to our planet. It is a way in which artists can voice

the opinions of entire countries. It is a form of story telling so as not to

forget their countries past but also to learn from in the development

of their futures.

This thesis will attempt to reach an overall understanding and a

realisation of the origins and evolutionary cycles of postcolonialism.

Chapter 1
This chapter discusses how 'otherness' as an idea plays a central role

in the social analysis of how indentities within majorities and

minorities are constructed and how this in turn is reflected and

represented as a visual aesthetic in both Western and non-Western

art. To understand the concept of The Other there must be a critical

analysis of how social identities are constructed.

According to cultural anthropologist Wojciech J.Burszta our social

identity is created and developed by societies to establish social

catergories within themselves. Such as gender identities, ethnic or

cultural identies, class identities among others. These identities give

us a preconcieved mould of who we think we are and what we are to

become, also how we define 'others' and be defined by 'others' and to

what social category we belong to.1

The conviction that the observer's society occupies a central –

and thus privileged – position in the world, while other societies

and cultures remain on the outskirts of 'our world', has been a

2
part of human consciousness since the dawn of time.

Wojciech J.Burszta

This view shared by Wojciech J.Burszta applies in particular to the

sterotyped middle-class European white male. We see this in the

subject of Victorian art fairs in London where 'The Other', being

anything outside of Europe, displayed as primitive and lesser

1 Us and Them. An Intricate History of Otherness. By Jagoda Romanowska.

http://www.biweekly.pl/article/2094-us-and-them-an-intricate-history-of-otherness.html accessed on
26/09/2015
2 Ibid. 04/10/2015
intellectualised objects of fascination.

Our social identities have been created by an ongoing social

interaction between other people and ourselves, through agreements,

disagreements and negotiation. Keeping in mind our subsequent self-

reflection of who we have been led to believe we are according to

these social exchanges. All of these interactions adjust our behaviour

and self-image based on our self-reflection of these particular

interactions. This is also known as 'the looking glass self'. 3 It is meant

to represent a distinctive and open self-image created through our

imagination and the interpretation of the world around us.

Concepts of difference and similarity are central to achieving a sense

of social belonging and identity. There is a certain element of

exclusivity to belonging to a social identity, as there is when joining

an organisation or club. Just as with the club or organisation, your

social identity requires you to meet certain sets or criteria. Just as

certain art movements require you to meet a certain criteria in an

aesthetic or conceptual method. However, this social criteria is a man

made construction, created by various social groups and societies.

Therefore giving these groups an element of illusion, as 'they' cannot

be part of any group unless 'we' are not in 'their' group. In this sense

identities are set up as dichotomies. For each group created there has

to be an opposite.

3 Charles Horton Cooley, On Self and Social Organization, The University of Chicago Press(1999). Pg
23
According to the anthropologist Sir Edmund Leach, the dichotomy of

“us” and “them” comes from the binary opposition between “non-

human” and “human”.4 This is the primary reason behind the division

of ourselves into “us” and “them”.

This division is clearly seen in the work of artists such as Abrecht

Durer in his etchings of angels and demons battling in coexistence

with us as humans on our planet Earth as we can see here in

Illustration 1. Both angels and demons ( dragons in this case ) are

considered to be 'others' of humans yet there is a clear likeness to the

angles features as there is to our own.

Illustration 1: Saint Michael Fighting by Albrecht

Durer the Dragon (1498)

4 Susan H. Lees, The Essential Edmund Leach. Vol. 1: Anthropology and Society. Stephen Hugh-Jones
and James Laidlaw. Eds. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2000.
Another soiciologist who also agrees with this notion of idendities

being set up as dichotomies is Zygmunt Bauman. “Woman serves as

the other to man, an animal acts as the other to human, abnormality

the other of normality or the foreigner as the other to state subject”.5

This is a clear example of constructing a set of social categories that

are dual opposites in terms of identity and social status. It can be

argued that an understanding of what being a man or woman means

due to the way socialisation has shaped our ideas on the subject.

There has always been an unequal relationship between the two

categories. The political activist, feminist and social theorist Simone

de Beauvoir argues that man set up woman as the Other of himself.

Therefore masculinity has been socially constructed as a benchmark

and universal norm in which social ideas of humanity are legislated,

discussed and compared to.

Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in

herself bus as relative to him; she is not regarded as an

autonomous being... She is defined and differentiated with

reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is

the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential.

He is the Subject, he is the Absolute- she is the Other.

Simone de Beauvoir6

Even for a woman to defy her so called 'feminine weakness' shows a

5 Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence. Polity Press in association with Blackwell
Publishers Ltd, 1991. Pg 9
6 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. 1949.
haunting of her own femininity caused by the socially constructed

version of masculinity. This masculinity is what many feminists strive

to be seen as equal to, or to be categorised in the same group that is

human. This is not to state that there is no difference between 'man'

and 'woman', the difference is cleary physical and biological, one is

male the other is female. What is synthetic and created are the

socially constructed terms 'man' and 'woman'. These dichotomies of

otherness are made out to be all natural and we very occasionally see

it that way throughout our day to day lives. 7 These social

constructions of identity, be it gender or ethnical, represent a social

order that is well established by a social heirarchy in which some

groups are established as being more important and superior to other

groups. Identity in fact, is also completely up to the individual to

create their own using their own views and beliefs of what goes on

around them in the world.

Often socially identified groups have a superior and inferior class

system which are unchangeable by the inferior side. This creates a

power struggle, between identities, to be the group which defines

themselves and defines 'the other'. Usually it is the social institutions

(religion, law, media, education) who have a hold on the power

balance of what is described as the Other, through their

representations of what is to be considered as normal.

7 Bauman, op.cit., p.73

Considering the Western countries that have a colonial history, such

as the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Australia, it is

predominantly the middle-class, Christian, white man with who

differences of postivity or negativity are compared against. This also

then creates a visual representation of otherness.

A representation that has been documented by artists throughout

history. Artists such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867)

whose work depicts 'the Other' through representations of

mythological, religious and historical narratives. However his most

popular paintings where the odalisque paintings that where

influenced heavily by the diaries and letters of Mary Wortley Montagu,

the wife of Turkish ambassador.

Illustration 2: The Turkish Bathers by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1862-

1863)
 As can be seen in Illustration 2. The image is highly erotic and

associates itself with both representations from the east and the west.

The perfume bottles near the bottom edge of the painting, the

oriental vases and materials, and the dark skinned women are all

images not usually associated to Western society and culture. The

depictions of another culture, not considered westernised, fascinated

European society at the time. This fascination continues to be a

common subject in the visual arts practice.

A great example of two artists who took advantage of 'other'

aesthetics are Paul Gaugin and Pablo Picasso. During the time period

in which both artists worked there was a large influence from non-

Western and pre-industrial cultures on Western aesthetics in art.

There is evidence throughout major art movements in the twentieth

century – Cubism, Surrealism, German Expressionism, Fauvism – of an

African-influence on the aesthetics. Both painters who appropriated

the aesthetics of other cultures as a fascination tool for European

society to enjoy and feel cultured. We can now after having studied

the traditions of European art begin to see the aesthetic relationships

between non-Western and Western art. It is clearly recognisable, the

way in which Western art has drawn quite liberally and literally from

other cultures. Robert Hughes, art critic for Time magazine, stated in

his series of BBC documetaries that Picasso culturally plundered

Africa; “The African carvings were an exploitable resource, like copper

or palm-oil, and Picasso's use of them was a kind of cultural

plunder”.8

This plunder of Africa by the Wetern world is documented by the

Artists El Anatsui and Yinka Shonibare.

Apart from using the human body as a visual aesthetic of 'the other',

artists such as El Anatsui incorporate material and medium as a

representation of an 'other' culture. El Anatsui was born and studied

in Ghana.

Illustration 3: City Plot by El Anatsui (2010)

He often transforms simple materials, such as discarded liquor bottle

caps and copper wire, into complex assemblages as seen in

Illustration 3.

The use of the material reflects a desire to connect with the content
8 The Shock of the New – Ep 5, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0HeSrqXKps. Accessed on
10/10/15.
of Africa as a whole, while at the same time shows an interest in

reuse and transformation.9 The sculptures are often wall based and

are encouraged to form different shapes each time they are shown.

This particular piece (Illustration 3.) is composed of thousands of

folded liquor bottle caps that are most commonly associated with the

areas he is from and lives in (Ghana and Nigeria). The sculptures he

makes are meticuously fabricated and can grow to be gigantic in

scale. They are intentionally made to be flexible in form so as to

disassociate itself from the tradtions of a sculptures fixed shape. 10 The

work interrogates the history of colonialism and puts together

connections between waste, the environment and consumption. The

sculptures also visually reference and reflect on the history of

abstraction in African and European art.

His choice of the used liquor bottle caps, which he collects from local

alcohol recycling stations, comment on a broader story of postcolonial

and colonial cultural and economic exhchange in Africa. 11 European

traders came to Africa with products to exchange for slaves, including

alcohol. Often these slaves were traded in order to be shipped to The

Carribeans in order to work and produce more alcohol. 12 The bottle

caps signifying the relationship between the three continents.

Another artist who represents aesthetics of 'the other' and a

9 In conversation with El Anatsui. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr_L5u1cFQ0, 18/10/15

10 Jack Shainman Gallery artist bio El Anatsui. http://www.jackshainman.com/artists/el-anatsui/.
Accessed 18/10/2015
11 SHORT : El Anatsui: Studio Process, from the series “Exclusive”. Www.art21.org. 16/10/2015
12 Rum and the African Slave Trade – The currencey of New England. By Brenda Reynolds. 2012.
www.academia.edu 17/10/2015
postcolonial commentry through his use of material is Yinka

Shonibare.

He was born in London but moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of

three, and returned back to london to study Fine Art. Yinka Shonibare

links the themes of colonialism and postcolonialism to the more

contemporary themes within the context of globalisation. He works in

a variety of mediums including paint, photography, sculpture and

performance, dealing with issues such as race and class. Within the

different varieties of media he tackles issues of identity and how it is

constructed and the complicated interrelationship between Europe

and Africa and their respective political and economical histories. He

combines literature and Western art history and questions what our

collective contemporary identity constitutes of in this day and age. He

also questions the meaning of national and cultural definitions,

describing himself as a 'post-colonial' hybrid. 13 In 2002 he was

commissioned to create, his now most recognised work 'Gallantry and

Criminal Conversation', by Okwui Enwezor at the exhibition

Documenta X.

There is an exaggerated sense of tongue-in-cheek about his work

while the topics he discusses are quite serious. As seen in Figure 1.

Leisure Lady, he combines the themes of Victorian life and the use of

African inspired fabrics, though originally made in the Netherlands. It

is a juxtaposition between the obvious and the ambiguous. While the

13 Interview with Yinka Honibare : BP British Art Lecture | Tate Talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3rHU3ce43T4 . Accessed on 26/03/15
 fabrics portray Shonibare's reflection of how African men and woman

used them to highlight their idealized cultural connection, there is

also a historical paradox. The fabrics originally made for Indonesia by

the Dutch were rejected and then sold to traders in Africa who turned

the rejected material into a cultural windfall with global recognition

and association.

This life size fibre glass model is styled in a very Victorian fashion and

has her body and hand placed in quite an elegant yet off putting

position. The scene only throws us off because of the African inspired

fabric the lady is wearing. Africa being seen as been colonised and

'owned' by Europe.

Illustration 4: Leisure Lady (with ocelots) by Yinka Shonibare, 2001.

In conclusion, we can see how the subject of the Other has developed

over time, from mythology to gender and all the way into culture and

politics. All of this time it has been documented and commented upon

by artists. Our ideals and ethics are constantly evolving and so too

shall developments from postcolonial theories and the art that comes

out of it.
Chapter 2
The previous chapter defined and explained the different forms and

identities that 'otherness' and 'the other' can assume. The chapter

will explore the evolving identity of what we percieve African art to be

and where it is placed on an international level. It will discuss in detail

the exhibition, Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist, shown in the

summer of 2013 (3rd July- 22nd September) at London's Tate Modern

featuring the works of the highly acclaimed artist eighty two year old

visonary modernist Ibrahim El-Salahi, and also look at some of the

moments that shaped his life and that of the African modernist art

movement. The show is curated by Morgan Quaintance.

Ibrahim El-Salahi has been the first African artist to be the subject of a

major retrospective by the Tate Modern. He was born in Omdurman,

Sudan in 1930 and completed a painting degree at the School of

Design at Gordon Memorial College (now known as Khartoum's School

of Design). Completing his degree in 1953 he was awarded a

government scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, one

of London's leading art schools. This move was to completely

revolutionise his art and his life. “I found it fascinating. I discovered

Cezanne, Giotto and other European artists.”14 A move in which he

fully immersed into the London art scene, where he got to experience

first hand the work of leading contemporary artists at the time. All

which influenced his art and in turn his painting jumped between

numerous modernist styles such as cubism, impressionism and

abstraction. With over fifty years of continuous intellectual

14 Ibrahim El-Salahi: Painting in Pursuit of a Cultural Identity by Rebecca Jagoe, theculturetrip.com,

accessed on 27/10/15
engagement and productivity, El-Salahi has become one of the most

prominent figures of African modernism. It can be argued that he has

made monumental contributions to the modernist movement through

his exploration of painterly strategies and his influential work as a

critic and writer. In order to understand his work and establish a full

recognition of its importance we must understand his origin and

marvelous journey through his career. We must remove the traditional

Eurocentric dichotomies that are set up throughout art history in the

divide from the West and the non-West, giving a derivative status to

one and a primacy to the other.15

The division between the West and non-West, or between

North and South, ranks as the greatest divide in
contemporary history, the main boundary marking the
difference between inside and outside, a global boundary
which is reproduced in countless local frontiers of cultural
pluralism.16

Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Like many African artists of his generation, their achievments too

often go unrecognised. In many twentieth and even twent-first-

century art texts their is a conscious exclusion of these artists whose

practices have been sidelined.17 As Edward Said argued, the

tremendous blend of non-Western art and culture has been left out of

the dominant history of Western modernism throughout most of the

twentieth century.18

15 Ibrahim El-Salahi and the Making of African and Transnational Modernism, By Salah M. Hassan
16 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalisation and Culture: Global Mélange. Lanham, MD, Rowman and
Littlefield. 2003
17 Rasheed Araeen, “Modernity, Modernism, and Africa’s Place in the History of Art of Our Age,”
Third Text 19, no. 4 (July 2005): 416–17
18 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993), p. 242
 The appropriation of history, the historicization of the
past, the narrativization of society, all of which give the
novel its force, include the accumulation and
differentiation of social space, space to be used for social
purposes19

Edward Said

In 1957 El-Salahi returned to Sudan to become a teacher in Khartoum

at the Technical Institute and also to become one of the leading artists

of the Khartoum School movement. Only one year prior to his return,

Sudan had gained its independance of British colonial rule and was

undergoing many political and cultural changes at the time. Having

been given its independance in 1956 with the consent of Egyptian

and British government with the majority of civil services and

administration being situated within Northern Sudan caused an

exclusion of the Southern Sudan from government. Thus began the

civil war between the North and South that would last from 1955-

1972, a total of seventeen years.

With the intention of creating a new artistic means of expression, El-

Salahi held an exhibition at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum of the work

he had completed at Slade. This work was rejected by the Sudanese

public due to its European academic style which did not sit in

harmony with the Sudanese cultural language at the time. 20 “I

organised an exhibition in Khartoum of still-lifes, portraits and nudes.

19 Ibid. Said.
20 The Culture Show – Who Are You Calling an African Artist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=srWIeMyQcgk, First broadcast: 24 Jul 2013. accessed on 26/10/15
People came to the opening just for the soft drinks.After that, no one

came.” After this exhibition El-Salahi took a short break from painting

and travelled around the country seeking inspiration from Sudan's

landscapes and people. It is after this that we can see the influence of

Arabic calligraphy starting to appear more often in his painting, as he

integrated the Islamic signs and calligraphy, that he'd learnt as a

child, into his compositions. In 1961, El-Salahi visited Nigeria, where

he met two writers Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe and took notice

of a renaissance of sorts making its way through the continent. Artists

and writers all over the continent were creating new forms of art

taking from traditional art and creating Africa's great modernist

moment.21 It was painters such as Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko from

Senegal's Ecole de Dakar and Mozambique's Valente Malangatana

whose work Salahi's fitted in with as an African modernist.

This time period between 1958-1961 became a constant search for

his artistic identity and El-Salahi began producing work at a relentless

pace.

The years 1958-1961 were a period of feverish

activity on my part in search of individual and
cultural identities[...] Those years as it turned out,
were the years of transformation and transformation
that I went through as far as my work was
concerned.22
El-Salahi

21 Ibrahim el-Salahi: from Sudanese prison to Tate Modern show, written by Mark Hudson, The
Guardian, 03/07/13
22 Ibrahim El-Salahi and the Making of African and Transnational Modernism By Salah M. Hassan. Pg
12. http://universes-in-universe.org/txt/2013/el-salahi/Ibrahim_El-Salahi_Essay_Salah_Hassan.pdf
 Illustration 5: Self Portrait of Suffering (1961) by Ibrahim El-Salahi

The painting Self Portrait of Suffering (illustration 5) is an example of

this pursuit of transformation in his work. The face is distended and

nearly horselike in its features, the muted pallete and dry brush

marks, are all features which can be associated to the likes of Picasso.

Who, as mentioned in the previous chapter, appropriated vast

amounts of his stylistic approach to facial features from the masks of

West Africa.

Another of his works, perhaps his most well known work that

incorporates the use of the Islamic crescent motif that occured very

frequently in his work, is the painting Reborn Sound of Childhood

Dreams (illustration 6).

Illustration 6: Reborn Sound of Childhood Dreams (1961-1965) by Ibrahim El-Salahi

A group of ghostly figures with elongated heads, stretched limbs and

sunken eyes come forth from a light yoellow ochre background. The

grey, black and dark blue figures are constructed from oil and enamel

paint on damouriya, a hand woven and narrow textile indigenous to

Sudan. “The colour which I work for some years, burnt sienna, ochre,

yellow ochres, white and blacks – it's the colour of the earth in the
23
Sudan, which I cared about a great deal...”

The elongated heads of the figures can be associated with the same

aesthetics of African masks. Also, according to El-Salahi ;

23 TateShots : Ibrahim El-Salahi. http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-ibrahim-el-
salahi. Accessed 30/10/15
 These elongated, black-eyed, glittering facial shapes might
represent the veils our mothers and grandmothers used to wear
in public, or the faces of the drummers and tambourine players
I had seen circling wildly during funeral ceremonies and chants
in praise of Allah24
Ibrahim El-Salahi

Together with his exploration of composition and form, El-Salahi was

also testing the properties of paint, and exploring the idea of painting

as an object not just an image. 25 His canvases often differ between

very thin layers of paint where the image just about rests upon the

canvas such as Vision of the Tomb (1965), and others that are layed

down with a thick and heavy crust of paint such as Dry Months of the

Fast (1962).

During the early 1970's El-Salahi worked in Britain for the Sudanese

Embassy, afterwards he received a job from the government of Sudan

as the Deputy Under Secretary of Culture at the Ministry of

Information in Sudan. During this time the country was under a

dictatorship rule lead by General Gaafar Nimeiry, however El-Salahi

felt it was his duty to accept the offer. He was arrested without

explanation, shortly after a failed military coup that his cousin had

been implicated in, under accusations of anti-government activities.

24 TateShots.
25 Ibrahim El-Salahi and the Making of African and Transnational Modernism By Salah M. Hassan. Pg
7
“My cousin had been implicated in an attempted coup, but I was

never charged with anything.”26 He spent six months in prison in

prison El-Salahi used his religion, art and deep spirituality to escape

from the appalling conditions he was subject to.

There were ten of us in a cell, sharing a bucket that was

overflowing. The penalty for being caught with writing
materials was solitary confinement. But I kept working,
drawing on scraps I buried in the ground.27

Ibrahim El-Salahi

He moved to Qatar following his release. During this time El-Salahi's

influence from futurist artsits such as Boccioni became apparant in his

work. The painted figures becoming more machine-like and composed

of geometric shapes and lines.

Ibrahim El-Salahi moved again in 1998 to Oxford, where his

fascination of geometric figures and lines grew further. The English

countryside became his subject. It is here where he began his series

of tree paintings, describing them with parallel vertical lines. The

geometric shapes can perhaps be traced back to the use of geometric

forms and patterns in Islamic tradition to illustrate the order of the

world.28 El Salahi's piece Tree (illustration 7) is a definite example of

this new direction his art has moved in. With a certain likeness to

Mondrian, the canvas is split into different colour panels against a

white background but is still representational of a tree.

26 The Guardian , Ibrahim el-Salahi: from Sudanese prison to Tate Modern show By Mark Hudson.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
27 Op cit.
28 Arts of the Islamic World: A beginners guide to the art of Islam by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis,
1997.
Illustration 7: The Tree by Ibrahim El-Salahi. 2003

For Ibrahim El-Salahi, the success of his art is not measured by its
success in the West but by the reaction and movement it initiates in
Africa.

I'll give you an example. In 2011, I went to Algiers for

the opening of a new modern art gallery. We waited
and waited. Finally we were told the event was cancelled
because the culture ministers of the African countries
didn't want to come. This is what we've put up with.
But we've kept on working. And now, at last, it feels like
a door is opening.29

Ibrahim El-Salahi

29 Ibid. Painting in Pursuit of a Cultural Identity

Chapter 3
In the previous two chapters, the concept of otherness and

postcolonial theory has been discussed in relation to art practice, in

both Western and non-Western culture. The idea and theory of

postcolonialisation as a subject matter in contemporary art,

throughout the last half of the twentieth century, has become

increasingly popular and renowned for viewers and practitioners alike.

With the ever increasing amount of immigration to the West and a

steady decolonialisation of the non-West, particularly within Africa

over the last fifty years, it has become a popular subject matter for

artists and institutes alike. This chapter will highlight this current

trend of subject matter and theme, by discussing several exhibitions

and texts that have been written and that have taken place over the

last twelve years. The exhibitions that shall be discussed are: Fault

Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes; Africa

Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent; Snap Judgements: New

Positions in Contemporary African Photography; Who Knows Tomorrow

As with chapters one and two this chapter will focus primarily on

countries in Africa and their relationship with the West. The

exhibitions will be discussed in a chronological order starting from

oldest first.

The first exhibition we are going to look at took place in 2003 and is

titled Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes,

curated by Gilane Tawadros. The term fault lines is a geological term

that indicates the intersections between the earths surfaces and

planes and can also be a potentially disruptive division or area of

contention.30 They can predict possibilities of impending disaster or

significant shifts of the worlds surfaces due to the nature of the earths

ever shifting plates. The exhibition brings together a group of fifteen

contemporary artists from Africa and its near surroundings. Together

their work follows the fault lines which shape our contemporary

experience of the world through the effects of globalism, migration,

postcolonialism and colonialism.31 The work ranges through a variety

of mediums from the traditions of sculpture and paint through to

installation, photography and architecture. The works spans over a

period of five decades, three generations and four continents,

attempting to break free of the notion of a one-dimensional or

genuine african experience.

One of the artists on show is the world renowned painter Frank

Bowling, who during the late sixties and early seventies created a

series of map paintings which combined the investigation of his

political agendas and also the formal properties of painting. Bowling

helped create a huge tension between content and form through his

involvment of poscolonial concerns with contemporary art. This led

subsequent generations to comment on political and aesthetic

concerns and allow for them to become mutually exclusive. 32 Also

included is the work of Hassan Fathy the Egyptian architect whose

work negotiates between modernity and tradition through his project

'architecture for the poor'. Fathy worked with villlagers to construct

30 Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, Harper Collins Publishers 2003.
31 La Biennale di Venezia, 50th International Art Exhibition, 15th June – 2nd November 2003, Press
informarion.
32 Ibid.
homes from cheap and traditional methods and materials and

supervised the erection of the buildings. His architecture moves 'from

colonialisation to independence to development and its aftermath

entangled with grand dreams of regional pre-eminence'.33

Another exhibition that took place between 2004 to 2006 making a

large impact on the international stage, being the biggest showing of

contemporary African art Europe has ever seen, 'Africa Remix:

Contemporary Art of a Continent' showed the works of eighty five

artists. Chief curator Simon Njami made sure that the exhibition was

not to be an 'ethnographic exhibition' 34, there were to be no fetishes,

masks and funerary poles. The exhibition in its entirety took place

between four collaborating galleries: Centre Pompidou, Paris; the

Hayward Gallery, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and Museum

Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf. London only having represented sixty of

the complete eighty five artists, still a very substantial number.

The notion of Africa being de-exoticized is quite apparant in this

exhibition, quite plainly seen in the work of Fernando Alvim in his

painting titled 'We Are All Post-Exotics'. This notion has long been

argued for by Njami, who is also the editor of the French magazine La

Revue Noire.35 The exhibition acts as a corporate re-branding of

Africa. The exhibition provides us with a new age shift of how Africa is

percieved, a continent full of identity and a thirst for wider global

boundaries. One of the exhibitions primary problems tackled is

globalisation and its massive transformation in our modern world

33 Architecture for the Poor, Nassan Fathy. University of Chicago Press. 2010.
34 Africa Remix by Roland Kapferer, Frieze Magazine. June 2005
35 Politique Africaine Les archives de la revue, www.politique-africaine.com . Accessed on 21/11/15
together with its ever growing contemporary form.

As also shortly discussed in the first chapter of this thesis,

globalisation is to be seriously considered when observing the

transformation in the contemporary art scene. Globalisation generally

meaning the process of surpassing a nation-state through an open

corporate global network. Though now a days rather than the state

dissapearing and being receded by these massive corporate networks

they are, as anthropologist Bruce Kapferer would also argue, merging

36
with these global forces in order to create a corporate state. This is

evident in in most countries were the partnership between state and

privatisation has been formed. Were the people become the

consumers. This is reflected by the artists in 'Africa Remix', these

merged and transmutated systems in flux, as we can see in the work

of Julie Mehretu and her painting Ruffian Logistics (illustration 8).

Illustration 8: Ruffian Logistics by Julie Mehretu. 2001

Alot of the art work also represents a certain violence associated with

many of Africas countries and history, much to the contrast of David

Elliott the co-curators idea of Africa being a “rainbow nation”. For

36 Op cit. Frieze magazine

example, the work of South African artist William Kentridge whose

piece 'Ubu Tells the Truth' is a shocking animation of violence and

torture and questionable reconciliations of the apartheid in South

Africa.

'Africa Remix' acts as a reflection and commentry of contemporary life

within Africa after its terrible ordeals colonialism and its

reconstruction. For hundreds of years now Africa has been in a

continual state of ownership and re-ownership, constructed and

deconstructed.

Illustration 9: Couleurs de Peche by Boubacar Toure Mandemory. 2005

Photography has been present in Africa over the last hundred years.

But what is mostly associated with photographs from Africa and of

Africa are those of Western photography engaging with images of

poverty, corruption and disease. The exhibition, which took place in

2006, 'Snap Judgements: New Positions in Contemporary African

Photography' is a response to this overview, which overlooks fifty

nations and the complex lives that take place within them. It

contradicts the associations from the West and highlights the varied

contemporary photographic practices that are arising throughout

Africa. The exhibition moves away from standard commercial

portraiture and highlights the emphasis of fashion, art, and

documentary photography. All of the work in the show had been

produced after the year 2000. Most within a year of the show and a

few of them commissioned just for the show. Snap Judgments

enforces the viewer to look at Africa from the forceful propositions of

these contemporary artists. Its wants to demonstrate the social reality

of their modern African lives and using photography as the tool to

document these various social realities. 37 Several themes run

consistantly throughout the show: framing the African body; response

by locals to the global media; urban sites; postcolonial memory and

identity. The exhibition was curated by Okwui Enwezor and features

the works of Boubacar Toure Mandemory, Zohra Bensemra, Mohamed

Camara, Guy Tillim and many more.

In 2010 the National Gallery of Berlin invited five artists, all

internationally acclaimed, to take part in a project taking place

outside the four venues of the National Gallery (Friedrichswerder

Church: Yinka Shonibare, Old National Gallery: El Anatsui, Hamburger

Bahnhof: Antonio Ole and Zarina Bhimji, New National Gallery: Pascale

Marthine Tayou). The National Gallery invited the artists to present

their work on the Gallery's grounds and convert them into an

37 International Center of Photography review of Snap Judgements.
http://www.icp.org/exhibitions/snap-judgements-new-positions-in-contemporary-african-
photography. Accessed on 27/11/2015
ensemble of large scale installation and sculptural works, that are

predominantly site specific and created outdoors. The title 'Who

Knows Tomorrow' is inspired from a photograph on an inscription seen

on a little bus in Africa, a term widely used throughout the continent.

The artists create a dialogue that prompt questions of economical,

social and political changes perhaps relevant now more than ever. 38

Each of the National Galleries buildings hold a specific connection to

various historical situations that are an expression and representation

of the countries history and present. 'Whose history need to be told

and faced up to now? Is uncertainty over the future now the greatest

certainty we have today? What is art's contribution to helping

overcome (art) historical constructs, cliches and stereotypes?' 39, these

are the questions tackled by the work of the artists. The exhibition

does not try and use the artists and their work as representatives of

the African continent. Instead they reflect on Germany's own history

and culture against the back-drop of the four iconic buildings of the

National Gallery, which play their own role in the reflection of German

state identity from various periods of its past. The works show signs

of the complex past relations of Europe and Africa and deal with the

much discussed subjects of globalisation and the search for identity,

which as this chapter suggests are currently very topical. A link has

been established between the colonialisation and decolonialisation of

Africa and Berlin through its hosting of the 'Berlin Africa Conference'

38 Press release of Who Knows Tomorro, Universes in Universe. 2010. http://universes-in-

universe.org/eng/specials/2010/who_knows_tomorrow. Accessed 27/11/2015.
39 Exhibition detail from Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
http://www.smb.museum/en/exhibitions/detail/who-knows-tomorrow.html. Accessed 26/11/2015.
in 1884/85, establishing the final divisions of the African political map

amongst the imperial powers of the West (see below in Illustration 10,

Yinka Shonibare's version of conference). While in Europe at the time

their was fierce debate over the question of national identity, however

this topic was not raised at the time in colonial Africa. 40 'Who Knows

Tomorrow' seeks to look at the cross-ties between Europe and Africa

of both the past, the present and the future. It is not a representation

of an historical African aesthetic but more so a social perspective of

the history of art over a variety of cultures, Western and non-Western

alike.

Illustration 10: The Scramble for Africa by Yinka Shonibare. 2007

This chapters aim is to establish a recognition of the continuously

growing trend on the topics of social identity, otherness,

40 Op cit. Staatliche Museen.

postcolonialism and globalisation and the relations and

comparisons between the West and non-West, and the

connections between Africa and Europe. As Africa evolves from

its colonised past, the more its past is looked into from a native

perspective as a commentry through art. Or as is the case in

'Who Knows Tomorrow' from a cultural fusion of a European and

African perspective. The history of Africa and Europe is a shared

one as is that of Western and non-Western history. The

understanding of our past will play a vital role in understanding

and solving social issues of our future. As the effects of

globalisation and capitalism bulldoze their way into our everyday

lives we must not forget the similar actions of European

imperialism and the damaging effects it has had upon Africa to

this very day.

Conclusion
 Coming to the end of the thesis, It can be seen that the subject

of postcolonialism is very relevant to the contemporary art

scene. The idea of the Other within society has existed since the

beginning of human civilisations. This is explained in the frist

chapter. Otherness can be seen in all forms of identity such as

ethnic, gender or political formats. The first chapter ended

looking at a more political form of 'othering', by viewing in small

detail the works of Yinka Shonibare and El Anatsui, in terms of

postcolonial effects upon countries in Africa and different uses

aesthetics to represent this concept. The second chapter

followed on from where the first chapter left off, looking at the

aesthetics and idea of 'the other' from a postcolonial African

perspective.

Throughout history, countries and cultures have been colonised and

plundered. However, given the time we live in where freedom of

speech and expression is a lot more leniant than in the past, it is

documented and displayed by artists for people to see and recognise.

Young postcolonial artists have stories to tell that were previously

disguised or unmentioned by the media or the countries postcolonial

counterparts. Throughout the last half of the twentieth century, the

idea and theory of postcolonialisation has become increasingly

popular and renowned for viewers and practitioners alike. With the

ever increasing amount of immigration to the West from the non-

West, particularly within Africa over the last fifty years, it has become

a popular subject matter for artists and institutes alike.

Many of the previously discussed artists and artwork have this

intention of breaking down former sterotypes and perceptions of the

West upon the non-West. A lot of what the artists in this thesis have

discussed are the relationships between the previously colonised

countries and their colonial powers. This plays a major role in the

topic of postcolonialism. For hundreds of years the suppressive

colonialists have forced their values upon the native people, however,

when independance is gained this ideology is meant to dissapear with

the suppresors. However these values are deeply etched into the

minds of the formerly colonised.

This is clearly seen in the work of El Anatsui and his use of old liquor

bottle caps, highlighting the relationship between Nigeria and the

West in both the past and present. The same can be said of Yinka

Shonibare's use of fabric typically associated with African culture but

in fact has origins from the Netherlands. These uses of aesthetics are

a means of postcolonial recognition.

Colonial powers have had to accept the loss of control and power

over countries, while countries newly independent have to learn

to put it into practice. This is what makes postcolonialism such a

hot topic at the moment in contemporary art. A new perspective

and a new generation of artists from across the globe are now

entering the public eye. New movements shall occur that will

evolve from both Western and non-Western styles and theories.

The art that comes out of postcolonialism is all part of the

process of decolonialisation. A process carried out through

language and communication. Art allows for a discussion to take

place between the viewers and the artists, and also among

themselves. It is a language which is universal. One might look at

postcolonialism as a discussion on what happened to colonial

thinking towards the end of its era. The economical, cultural and

social consequences can clearly still be seen today in terms of

migration and increasing amount of multiculturalism particularly

within Western societies.

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