Three Walls Regional Aesthetics and the International Art Worldã¢â❠by Lynn M Hart

Fine art and Anthropology: Different Practices and Common Fields of Intersection

Thomas Fillitz

For several decades, practices of artists from all around the earth have diversified in media, techniques and ideas. Fine art institutions have diversified in a similar way in relationship to their organizational format, to their specializations and objectives. About importantly, by professional specializations and boundaries both of artists and cultural institutions take extended and blurred. Artists frequently act as curators, curators as researchers across fine art, and art institutions develop programs which expand into social fields. Cross-disciplinary practices are now core activities inside fine art worlds[i]. Equally Irit Rogoff writes, "We work in an expanded field, in which all definitions of practices, their supports and their institutional frameworks have shifted and blurred."[two]

Instead of an exclusivist field of art theory, gimmicky art practices, activities of exhibiting, and of scholarly investigation nowadays call for the cooperation of the many disciplines dealing in 1 way or another with the theme. This relates every bit much to regionally specific art creations, a new world order of antinomies betwixt a plurality of art worlds,[3] or fine art's key struggle between autonomy and heteronomy.[4]

Regarding the relationship of art and anthropology, debates focus largely on what anthropology could learn from (occidental) art history and vice versa, or what are key methodological differences betwixt both disciplines.[five] Intensified collaborations between art practices and anthropology developed inside the framework of participatory art,[6] insofar equally artists are concerned with small, on-site projects which focus on images of everyday life, and merits the collaboration with and participation of some (constructed) local communities. From an art historical perspective, Claire Bishop further elaborates methodological requirements for documentation which are close to anthropological fieldwork, the need to collect on-site data as well as to appoint with notions from social sciences – such equally community, empowerment, democracy, or agency.[vii]

Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics(2002) was seminal every bit information technology brought relational/participatory art to core reflections inside art worlds.[viii] Superstar curators, such equally Bourriaud himself, Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Hou Hanru, or Adam Szymczyk are major art globe players for promoting this art course.[9] In contrast to documenta14 (2017), which emphasized its socio-political focus with the championship 'Learning from Athens,' a review of the Biennale di Veneziaof 2017 precisely highlights the missing of such a perspective, and implicitly criticizes the curatorial vision of art'south autonomy. Nether the title 'Venice Biennale Lacks Relevance' critic Holland Cotter comments:

If the bland, soft-power 2017 Venice Biennale, called "Arte Viva," had arrived a few years ago, it might take made sense. But coming postal service-Brexit and mail-Trump, it feels out of sync with the political moment, and not strong enough to ascertain a moment of its ain.[x]

My introductory remarks so far highlight ii aspects, (a) the blurring of sometime disciplinary boundaries regarding art practices and art institutions, and the concomitant intensification of cross-disciplinary activities, and (b) the importance of curating and writing in the field of contemporary art for promoting specific art forms, and views of world-making.

Considering the importance attributed to writers (critics, theorists), and curators in the field of contemporary art, I intend to discuss the following aspects regarding my anthropological researching and writing in this field. I contend against the dissever between working with artists and working on artists. In my work with artists and on mega-exhibitions during my ethnographic research in W Africa, I consider a unity betwixt processes of researching and writing. However, I clearly differentiate between practices of artists, curators, and anthropologists. On these grounds, I further argue against writing as activity of representation, translation, or interpretation. Regarding the interaction with artists and exhibits, I rather assume the production of a common space of reflection as cardinal, out of which emerge the particularities of practices on the contemporary. As Beninese creative person Romuald Hazoumè one time expressed during a chat: "Our topic is not the ethnographic knowledge of the social phenomenon I am working on. I am exchanging with you regarding my thoughts about it, how I am dealing artistically with information technology."

In the following first role I shall discuss two examples of my investigations on art in West Africa. I shall deal with the interaction between Ivoirian artist Mathilde Moro and me as researcher. I thereby intend to elaborate the emergence of a common field of reflection which stretches out beyond the creative person's creations into other cultural themes. My other instance deals with curatorial activities regarding the central venue of the Biennale of Dakar, Dak'Art, the Exposition Internationale, and critical debates each edition generates. I shall specifically elaborate on the two most successful events of 2006 and 2016. Notwithstanding, the curators' objectives assorted and enhanced dissimilar discourses on fine art, for the 2006 edition in relationship to the field of art'due south autonomy – considerations on the history of modern and contemporary African fine art, while the 2016 venue expanded into the field of art's heteronomy – encouraging the visitors' imagination for the procedure of gimmicky globe-making.

The second part expands the question of anthropological researching/writing in reflecting the empirical examples in the context of concepts. I accept up Viktorin's thesis of the 'appearance,'[11] against reproduction or translation, as starting point of the interaction between creative person and anthropologist. With the concept of 'advent' Viktorin conceives the artwork equally a specific way of deconstructing socio-cultural spaces, thus bringing to the surface particular facets of them. Yet, Viktorin's 'appearance' is closely related to Canclini'south concept of art'due south 'imminence.'[12] This latter notion refers to art'south power to challenge accepted social orders without proposing solutions, to turn reflections towards images of desire and dissent. In an overall perspective, I connect both these concepts to Appadurai'southward conceptualization of the 'capacity of aspiration' (preferences, hopes, choices, etc.)[13] as a major aspect of civilisation, aspirations constituting a dialogical relationship with "sedimented traditions."[xiv] Hence, both the concepts of 'appearance' and 'imminence' constitute 2 levels of how artworks orient the work of imagination, and call for a multiplicity of discourses around the possibilities of contemporary art practices and of envisioning opportunities for social life.

Finally, every bit the examples of the Biennale of Dakar bear witness, and as Papastergiadis[15] points out, engaging with art forms as well requires "a disquisitional examination of the agile office – not just mediating office – of writers, curators, and technical producers."[16] These thoughts will be extended to methodological concepts of 'the curatorial,' how curators get together artists and works of arts in order to produce inside a mutual infinite images of alternative perceptions of the globe.[17] Going far beyond the sheer display of a multitude of works of art from diverse regions of the world, 'the curatorial' encompasses a plurality of methods of exhibiting which too can be investigated within the framework of 'advent' and 'imminence,' raising debates virtually the cultural capacity of aspiration – within the field of fine art, and/or stretching out to other socio-cultural ones.

Ii Ethnographic Examples

Interactions with Artist Mathilde Moro

I am sitting in front end of Mathilde Moro in her living room in Abidjan. An artist friend had established the contact between the states – he was convinced I had to run into her after having seen some of her artworks in a gallery of the city. Of course she had asked me about my research project on artists of the Abidjan art world, and I likewise had to explain to her why I wanted to interact with her.[18]

The situation is relaxed, we are having tea, and eating peanuts. Surrounded by many artworks – she had no studio at the time – Mathilde speedily engages in talking most herself. When she was a schoolchild, she always had a wistful eye. "I was writing poems at the time with much melancholy, words which could brand me cry." Without looking at me, she starts reciting … After her school years she found painting as a new medium, and entered the school of fine arts of Abidjan. "For long my colors were dark, I mainly used black and dark blue." In the early times, in the 1980s, she tells me that viewers found the intensity of her works aggressive and depressive: "Information technology was my dedication to art, the expression of what I felt!" But in the mid-1990s did Mathilde start using light colors as well, white for instance. But for her it was the same, she merely understood she could express herself in these colors as well. "These colors menstruation out of myself, information technology is always the aforementioned concern, but with a piddling distance, I can express myself differently."

I wanted to know more about this visualization of the artist's inner images. During one of our discussions we concretely talked almost two works, the cycle études de figurines (1997), and pan de mur (1996, wall console). The former are minor paintings of the famous Baule figurines, labelled akw'abain ethnographic museums. In an overall perspective, Mathilde applies pieces of bark-fabric or jute on the canvas, grounds information technology in yellowish, and draws in dark colour the contours and iconic elements of the figurines. The cycle études de figurines is a questioning most the time to come, Mathilde tells me. "These are not portraits, in each of them is this shade which passes by. I endeavour to catch the mysterious side, and it is always this veiled emotion. I want to instill life into them, create an ambiance." The act of creating form is similar excavating the figurine, "to re-create the figurine is to tell that these forms are not indifferent!"

The wall console is large in size, the support is produced of heavy wood, thus creating a raw texture. The artwork is non-representational, variations of white largely dominate, and are combined to smaller fields of unlike brownish colors. While driving one day in a region of Abidjan, the artist recounts, she saw ruins of pocket-sized houses. "Places without beauty …  are the source of my inspiration. In that location is life in them, people have lived in at that place, have synthetic these walls, fifty-fifty the ruins bear traces of men'south activities." Mathilde expands her reflection:

In these days we run into in Goggle box the inundations in Europe. Inundations are all effectually the world, today in Europe, another 24-hour interval in Africa, or in Asia … When I run across such images, I question about the feelings of the people who are concerned, their grievances, what they may say – the phenomenon itself is uninteresting, the suffering of people, their histories, their losses, these are the emotions I am talking well-nigh.

Mathilde's artistic practise, using various materials (similar bawl-textile, jute or things from the environs), and her taking-up of diverse forms and themes – the well-known akw'abafigurine, the reference to ritual dance, merely too everyday traces of people'southward life – was rapidly connected in Abidjan'southward art globe to the prominent vohou-vohoumovement. As Théodore Koudougnon, the movement'due south leading creative person, explained to me, vohou's characteristics consist in reflecting all elements of the contemporary artistic do in relationship to African (specifically Ivoirian) cultural traditions, be it materials, course-giving, or themes.[xix]

Mathilde Moro, Pan de mur (wall wrinkle, 1996). Photograph: Thomas Fillitz.

Moro, nevertheless, did non care about such a categorization, considering it too narrow. She does not view her exercise as a re-actualization of traditions in Côte d'Ivoire's contemporaneity. Her aims are the inner emotional images that grow out of experiences of everyday life: the traces of lived histories of people and the longing for justice. In all her artworks, Mathilde strives for harmony, "in the world I am constructing with my pictures, I desire harmony, a righteous life which I express with the various elements I am combining."

Lost traditions, houses in ruins, or catastrophes, they all are catalysts for the artist'due south visions regarding local, vernacular contemporaneity, and specifically individuals' everyday life destinies. The creative person articulates with her artworks less cultural retention and tradition, central to the vohou-vohoumotion, but rather aspiration for a righteous life. As Appadurai puts it: "culture is a dialogue between aspirations and sedimented traditions,"[twenty] and thereby highlights aspiration every bit a cultural capacity. Withal, Moro does not transfer images of everyday life into her artistic expressions, a practise applied for instance in installation art, but largely operates by means of abstract painting. Proceeding in this fashion, emotions are paramount for her endeavour at connecting and sensitizing collectors and the fine art interested public to socio-cultural inequalities and losses due to cultural change. If on the one hand Moro's work needs to be related to local art discourses around the vohou-vohou, it connects to social reality on the other as mediator betwixt the artist's inner images of indifference and righteous life – both at an individual and cultural level – and their generation of emotions corresponds to the cultural capacity of aspiration.

Aboriginal Palace of Justice, venue of Exposition Internationale, 12th Biennale de fifty'fine art africain contemporain, Dak'Art 2016. Photo: Thomas Fillitz.

The Curatorial: Dakar's Biennale of Gimmicky African Art, Dak'Art

One idiosyncrasy of the Biennale'due south primal venue, the Exposition Internationale, is the institutionalization of a selection committee. Between 1996 and 2008 selection committees were large in numbers, upward to sixteen, and half of their members were African experts, half of them European and Northward American ones. From 2010 on, these committees were much smaller in number (three to 4), and only African experts would be considered. Exceptions to this model were the 2006 edition, in which an African expert was nominated for the first time every bit general curator who was costless to establish his curatorial team, and in 2016, the Biennale shifted to a sole creative director. Another idiosyncrasy concerns selections: first, only artists with citizenship of an African state and/or from Africa'southward diaspora are eligible in this venue; 2nd, artists have to apply with a portfolio, and this policy is notwithstanding in identify, and selection committees are required to choose from among applications. Curatorial teams, however, expressed difficulties to structure a venue according to their objectives and ideas on the unique ground of these applications. Hence, this system was expanded for the 2006 edition, insofar equally the full general curator was accorded the correct to invite some internationally renowned artists. This two-tiered strategy – mostly applications complemented by some invitations – became systematic from 2012 on.

These adaptations of the structure of selection committees and their processes of option were reactions on the role of the Biennale'south secretariat to ongoing critiques from local artists and art-world specialists. For the nowadays purpose, I would like to cite the two post-obit ones. Firstly, these European and Northward American experts past and large lacked the knowledge of the history of modern and contemporary African fine art, and therefore adopted criteria of occidental fine art history (for all editions between 1998 and 2004, and for 2008). The shift to rely exclusively on African experts was a consequence, which too shows a rising conviction both in regional expertise and in the Biennale's performance. 2d, not-Senegalese, internationally renowned African artists were at starting time largely absent-minded from the events, equally they would not give up to an awarding procedure. In club to go them in, the Biennale later institutionalized its invitation policy.

Invitation was paramount for the edition of 2006 which was widely agreed to have been exceptionally successful. General curator Yacouba Konaté from Côte d'Ivoire and his team had placed the Exposition Internationale under the chief theme of 'Africa: Agreements, Allusions and Misunderstandings.' The team opted for a historical perspective, combining artworks from the times of independence up to the gimmicky. For instance, on brandish were works by Souleymane Keïta, an outstanding representative of the so-called École de Dakarwhich was devoted to Senghor's ideology of Négritudein the arts (brilliant colors, rhythm, traditional symbols) and past Bruce Onobrakpeya, who started his career as a member of the Zaria Art Club. Founded in 1958, and lasting until 1961-ii, it united a group of Nigerian art students who positioned their art practices beginning confronting colonial power, and 2nd in the context of a ascent national culture. In these times, Onobrakpeya's guiding principle was 'unity in diversity'[21] – that is, the mixing of traditional cultural symbols of Nigerian ethnic groups in the artwork. From the early 1960s I would farther mention Valente Malangatana Ngwenya, a cocky-taught artist from Mozambique whose artistic practice was influenced past the violence of colonial ability.

The showroom, however, too included artists and works which were and are subject to argue within the complex of modern and contemporary African fine art, similar the ones of Marcel Goten or Chéri Chérin. Goten's practice grew out of the Poto-Potoworkshop schoolhouse (Brazzaville) which had been founded by Pierre Lods.[22] Workshop schools, a phenomenon betwixt the late 1940s to the early 1960s, were critically viewed insofar as they were founded by colonial Europeans with arcadian (European) visions of Africa – the beauty of nature, the richness of myths, and the mysterious powers of magic and witchcraft. They picked up local youth, largely unaffected from European education, and furthered their practices past rejecting European art influence (techniques, concepts, and fine art history), while aiming to construct a directly connection to pre-colonial cultural traditions. Brilliant colors, the filling of the sheet, and the absenteeism of perspective were common characteristics of all these paintings.

Chéri Chérin works in what is known as popular painting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its ancestry too are the early 1960s, during the development of a postcolonial urban lifestyle, and at the time these works were nigh exclusively produced and sold in street stalls for local buyers. Centers were first Lubumbashi, and later Kinshasa. According to Fabian, popular art in Congo was an art of retentiveness that activates reflection and debate.[23] Themes of pop art in the Democratic Democracy of Congo moved between traditional village life, urban club, Zaïre's history, or the icons Colonie Belgeand Mami Wata. The latter, a most prominent theme, depicts a siren and mixes aspects of magic beliefs with socio-economic success, and Christianity – cultural elements which are cardinal for living vernacular modernity. Once again, while acknowledging popular art'due south quality every bit art, its inclusion within discourses of modern African fine art are highly debated among artists and art specialists in other African art worlds, who question whether this is non some other European perception of Africa.

Notwithstanding, the exhibit largely focused on contemporary works of African artists and artists of Africa's diaspora without any preferential fine art medium – in contrast to previous venues which favored installation arts. It included, amongst others, works of El Loko, who had been trained past Joseph Beuys, prominent Senegalese sculpture Ndary Lo, internationally renowned El Anatsui, material creative person Abdoulaye Konaté, video and installation artist Mounir Fatmi, and artists of the younger generation whose works were then not as validated.

The Biennale's showroom may be understood as a reflection on the history of modern and contemporary African fine art, and on how artworks by artists from diverse fine art worlds may be related to each other. This is indeed a fundamental business organisation for Konaté, equally he observed during discussion platforms at afterwards editions: there still is no satisfactory written history of modern and gimmicky African art. For the 2006 showroom, the general curator emphasized that his team sought to configure "a formal dialogue between the artworks."[24] In other words, their objective was to visualize "the complexity of the notion of African-ness"[25] confronting related (arcadian, distorted) imaginaries, largely produced by European and North American curators and art experts.

In 2016, renowned international curator Simon Njami was artistic director of the Biennale's twelfth edition. He titled the main venue "Re-enchantments. The City in the Blue Daylight," thereby referring to ideas expressed by Senegal's President-poet Léopold Sédar Senghor in the poem Campsite 1940 . Au Guélowâr (1984), envisions liberty from the bondage of oppression, and the building of a new and better socio-cultural order: "Your voice tells us the Republic, that nosotros shall build the Customs in the blue day in the equality of the fraternal peoples. And nosotros, we respond: 'Present, ô Guélowâr!'"[26]

Njami clearly stresses contemporary fine art'due south mission as "a identify of experimentation and discovery, thus necessarily free of the certitudes that dominate reason and reasoning."[27] Experimentation, freedom of creation, re-enchanting the world, and desire are key notions the artistic manager shared with the artists in creating the exhibition – to put the human existence back as a central calendar of contemporary world-making.

Youssef Limoud, Maqam 2016 (item). Photo: Thomas Fillitz. Courtesy: La Biennale de l'art africain contemporain, Dak'Art.

Njami's making of the exhibit connects various thematic trajectories. Among those I discussed with the artists and art world professionals I befriended, I would like to mention the following ones. Information technology stretches out between the installations of Youssef Limoud'due south Maqam(2016) and Baton Bidjoka'southward Ceci north'est pas mon corps, vous ne pouvez pas le consommer(2016).[28] Limoud's work is a structure of assembled materials from a neighbourhood in Dakar, thus referring to the ability of imagination and of social interaction as identify-making. Bidjoka's installation is a rebellion against the present-day appropriation of ane's work, thus the annihilation of the individual. Another strain is more personal and relates to the figure of the woman. Dalila Dalleas Bouzar's series Princesses(2015), an assemblage of portrait photographs from colonial times of unveiled Algerian women with gold ornaments, pays homage to the women of her country and thereby reasserts their nobility, while Fatima Mazmouz'south Super Oum(2009), are photographs of fictional female figures that offset contest worldwide male domination, and, second, reject the image of Mother-Africa as a powerful social divide of groups and individuals, and rather claims for envisioning a Mother-Patria of inclusiveness for all forms of socio-cultural diversity. Finally, Nabil Boutros' A Dream(2016), a deject hanging in space which is traversing a circle of barbed wire, is intended every bit the process of becoming (not belonging) which requires the freeing from assumed, indisputable socio-cultural structures and constraints, while Ndoye Douts' Encyclopedia(2011-15), consisting of innumerable minor square paintings, each with a theme of socio-political ugliness/scandal on a sky-blue primer coat, encourages to experience and imagine social life across ongoing everyday horrors.

Ndoye Douts, Encyclopedia, 2011-15 (detail). Photograph: Thomas Fillitz. Courtesy: La Biennale de l'art africain contemporain, Dak'Art.

Simon Njami'southward conceptualization of the Exposition Internationaleclearly was driven by a thematic consideration. The creative director sought artworks and artists who would sensitize and encourage beholders to imagine social relations beyond what is presently given, dissented, or assumed as un-contestable. The contemporary thereby is non positioned as a universal of man life, based clearly on experiences of quotidian life in various African places. Limoud, who was awarded the grand prize of the jury, worked with local materials for his installation. Dalila Dallea Bouzar honors women in re-appropriating their photographs from the times of the Algerian war, for which they had been forced to unveil. Withal they stretch out to more global visions – a perspective which is most clearly expressed in Bidjocka's installation. Furthermore, none of the works in the exhibit proposed any utopia, or solution. As El Anatsui stated in a chat with Olu Oguibe: "He [the artist] could be more sensitive, could exist a visionary, but he is, unlike a messiah, essentially a member of his customs who suffers the same fate every bit any other."[29] In this context, the paintings of Mbaye Babacar Diouf, exhibited at Dak'Art2016, are a revealing example. In Action(2015) references the importance of social relations confronting capitalism's neoliberal individualization, while Khaatim Africa(one and 2, 2015)[thirty] picks out the talisman as cultural object of aspiration and hope.

Different Practices and the Product of a Common Field of Interaction

In my first case, I selected on purpose the interaction with Mathilde Moro, because her artistic practice has no direct visible connexion to everyday life, and she rather emphasizes the materialization of inner emotional images. Such a making visible is also the major attribute for Mattias Viktorin[31] regarding the intersection between artists' and anthropologists' works. In his reflections well-nigh other anthropological genres of writing, he argues confronting reproduction, and instead highlights the respective notions of 'emergence' and 'appearance.'[32] In researching contemporaneity, both art and anthropology are focusing "on the problem of innovative form-giving."[33] Relying on examples from literature and visual arts, Viktorin suggests that "'advent' does not necessarily imply a structure that veils or conceals reality, but rather an actualizationthat brings distinct facets of the real into view."[34] Interestingly, Viktorin uses the examples of the Impressionists and High german Expressionists, 2 stylistic art forms located well inside art'due south autonomy. The former left the studio to paint in the environment and to create pictures of reality in different shapes and colors, whereas the latter's objective was to radically picture individual emotional states. Expressionism "abandoned the idea of mimesis and focused instead on what appeared in the process of creating art" – the consequence being "new means of seeing."[35] Viktorin concludes from these comparisons that "what arguably makes anthropological concepts analytically productive, then, is precisely the way in which they make things appear."[36]

Viktorin'south emphasis on emergence/appearance, against reproduction and/or translation, is a primary aspect for my inquiry and writing in the field of art. For my purpose, appearance, too, does not have much to exercise with interpreting artworks. The notion fundamentally relates to the discursive creation of a common field of reflection with an creative person. In my interaction with Moro, this was her readiness to engage with me regarding her emotions and the product of pictures. This related to several contexts: the fine art media in all their aspects; art forms she reflects upon; and the search for unravelling private histories that are inscribed in our environment– exist they more historically oriented with the series Études de figurines, or more present-day focused with Pan de mur– houses in ruins or other traces of human intervention in the urban mural of Abidjan; and internal images created past the global media flow of images.

Dealing with both imaginaries and places in his writing about fine art, Nikos Papastergiadis developed what he calls a topographical method.[37] "The aim of topography is not to recount stories of previous adventures; it is more concerned with the tracks and traces that are still visible and portable."[38] He too argues for a "new cross-disciplinary mode of analysis"[39] for contemporary art, one that does no more than restrict itself to representation or translation:

My methodology is not based on an art historical survey of new tendencies in gimmicky art, nor am I upholding a definitive sociological perspective that reveals geopolitical characteristics of art. Information technology requires that the author does not simply describe and clarify the limerick of the artwork … It does not characterize the genesis of the work according to the fixed coordinates that are either stated in the artist'due south intentions or defined by prior sociological debates on the context of fine art … my goal is instead to articulate the way creative practice is creating new levels of engagement with the bachelor spaces of gimmicky art and is expressing ideas that are part of everyday life.[40]

Of course Papastergiadis' 'topography' is more often than not concerned with participatory art. Although I would not call my researching and writing of contemporary art in Abidjan or Dakar topographic, my interactions with artists always depict on multiple topics, simply are in no way focusing on producing a local or regional survey. As briefly shown in my discussions with Mathilde Moro, her inclusion or not within the vohou-vohoumovement was random. More prominent was the disengagement from occidental art history's modernism, and the valuing of the creative cosmos from inside the particular Abidjan art world. Yet, the menses of images of the contemporary occupied some other primal space of reflection. It was, however, revealing how the artist made such images an issue of her own. Not as global phenomena, but she situates them from the vantage of the anonymously conceived local social actor, how s/he might have influenced her/his everyday life. In this framework, Mathilde's thoughts and emotions are articulated in connection to (historical, colonial) loss, to catastrophes, to present-day traces of man activities in the urban landscape, to social inequalities.

Collaborative research between art and anthropology – as common fields and different practices – are further related to the curatorial practices such as the ones of Dak'Art. Very generically, curating is "a gamut of professional person activities that had to practise with setting up exhibitions and other modes of display."[41] The biennial format, nonetheless, is specific insofar as information technology does not take to rely on a historically grown (museum) drove, and every bit it generally brings within a mutual space works of art from unlike fine art worlds– that is, from diverse regional art histories and discourses. The positioning of Dak'Artas the Biennale of contemporary African fine art and its selection regulations indeed imply clear overall constraints to the curatorial work. Insofar every bit exclusively African artists and artists of its diaspora may exist on display in the Exposition Internationale, it could finish up in a sheer brandish of multitude, that is choosing artists from as many African art worlds equally possible. General themes, introduced in 2006, should re-focus decision-making, but selection procedures are setting some boundaries to the curators' visions. Some members of curatorial teams actually argued that it was but a framework at large for them, and could not be applied strictly since they were bars to the body of applications.

The 2 examples I presented above were most successful in respect to the intentions of the curators. Yacouba Konaté's objective was to re-recollect and re-arrange the history of modernistic and contemporary art of Africa from the vantage point of African expertise, whereas Simon Njami opted to highlight the creative and visionary powers of African and African diaspora artistic practices equally a means to re-enchant contemporary earth-making.

Both curatorial approaches are continued to Viktorin's concept of 'advent.' In the case of full general curator Yacouba Konaté, it reflects the possibility of narrating the history of modern and contemporary African art freed from the criteria of occidental art history and other strange visions of Africa. Furthermore, I view Simon Njami's exercise in the context of ii other concepts: kickoff Canclini's conceptualization of art as the place of imminence,[42] and second the recent differentiation between 'curating' and 'the curatorial.'[43] For Canclini, art "gains its attraction in part from the fact that it proclaims something that could happen, promising pregnant or modifying meaning through insinuation."[44] Canclini really defines art as 'postautonomous' insofar as participatory/relational art is defined as the dominant art practice, and as art has shifted into various socio-cultural fields beyond classic art institutions such as museums or galleries. Above all, with fine art'due south 'imminence' Canclini emphasizes the reflexive space of artworks as "pathways and enigmas for cognition,"[45] instead of beingness solely viewed as materializations of artists' inner images.

Njami'south curatorial work emphasizes 'imminence' from the starting time with Senghor's poem and the related key notion of artistic 're-enchantment.' The objective is not the expression of utopias. The showroom develops strains of gimmicky issues, documentations of social life in different African places, and 're-enchants' in every bit far as it operates equally catalyst for imagining culling possibilities of social life. With this curatorial approach, Appadurai's concept of the capacity of aspiration as cultural fact reappears. It incites beholders to articulate desires, preferences, choices, to reverberate cultural norms – to experience the exhibition equally "a identify of experimentation and discovery, thus necessarily free of the certitudes that dominate reason and reasoning."[46]

In this dimension, the 2016 edition connects to the present methodology of the 'curatorial,' that takes the artwork equally a starting point in lodge to question various contexts – fine art practices, ideas regarding social, cultural, or political bug. It is an invitation for new means of seeing, for the imagination of the realm of the possible. Co-ordinate to Martinon 'the curatorial,' however, encompasses a huge variety of meanings:

The curatorial is a jailbreak from pre-existing frames, a gift enabling ane to see the earth differently, a strategy for inventing new points of departure, …  a style of caring for humanity, …  a political tool outside of politics, … an invitation for reflexivity, …  a style of fighting against corporate culture, etc.[47]

Among the many methods presented in Martinon, I would like to mention every bit objectives the questioning of hegemonic ability structures and the focus on other, more marginalized fine art forms (Milevska), the conceptualization of social encounters (Graziano), or 'curating context' (Szyłak).[48] In particular 'curating context' intends to use artworks for engaging with particular contexts and their meanings, with various cognition discourses that are brought into human relationship.[49] Whichever frame the curatorial is conceived inside, fine art'southward imminence re-appears in each of them in the form of exhibition making. All these approaches take up present-day cross-disciplinary strategies of artistic practices, deal with topics of the multitude of contemporary art in the world, or engage with challenges raised in nowadays-twenty-four hours postcolonial constellations.

Hence, these conceptualizations of the curatorial extend intersections betwixt art and anthropology. From the vantage betoken of the latter, fine art's qualities of advent and imminence become clearer when understood in relation to the capacity for aspiration. It is not a matter of learning from artists or curators, these concepts constitute the field to engage with in anthropological research on art and writing. Both the singular piece of work of art as well as exhibition-making may be viewed as archives of experiences of socio-cultural life, and the investigation of how appearance or imminence are derived from them unravel trajectories of reflection, of how the orientation of imagination is created. The contextual trajectories are multiple: be it fine art media; the production of transcultural art connections; specific art world discourses; or bug of localized contemporary quotidian life.

Conclusion

I started my argument with the articulate distinction between artistic practices, curatorial methods, and anthropological investigation/writing in the field of art. This assertion is paramount when because from an anthropological vantage point the global multitude of contemporary artistic practices, of curating, and the heterogeneity of art institutions. Instead of giving preference to a particular art medium – for example, installation art or participatory art because they are territorialized within specific social fields – these diversities of art, this 'epistemological disorientation,'[50] or Canclini'south 'postautonomous' condition of fine art are at pale. However one designates these present-day developments of art, they all refer to various, dissenting means of experiencing social life, and phone call for entangled discourses well-nigh these fine art-related phenomena.

Hence, the central task for investigation is the production of a common field of reflection with artistic and curatorial practices, including the debates they generate inside the art world. The singular work of art and the exhibit per seinstitute archives – of the experiences of quotidian life of the artist, of the concerns of contemporary bug of the curator/curatorial team. Both, still, are the grounds upon which aspirations become enacted, what Simon Njami nicely expressed with art's re-enchanting powers for Dak'Art2016, and Mathilde Moro with her striving for harmony and righteous social lives.

Within this dialogical framework of picture and vision (cultural memory and aspiration) I position the two other concepts, Viktorin's accent of emergence/appearance and Canclini's imminence of art. While the former'due south objective, 'innovative form-giving'[52] may well be conceived within art'southward autonomous discourses, as exemplified with Konaté'due south exhibition-making of Dak'Art2006, the latter views the art miracle every bit stretching out into other socio-cultural fields with the scope to imagine and/or to activate dissent. It is worth noting that both these concepts divert the anthropological research/writing on art away from the work's reproduction and/or translation, to appoint with unlike knowledges and their tensions.

The office of curators and their exhibition making indeed is cryptic, insofar as internationally praised ones – for contemporary African fine art (amongst others), Simon Njami, Okwui Enwezor, or André Magnin – are also favoring specific art media and views of this fine art, and thus contribute in ane way or another to ability discourses in the field of art. In this contribution, notwithstanding, I accept focused on curators' works in the context of art'due south capacity to aspiration. Methods of 'the curatorial,' although far from having a singular meaning, circumscribe exhibition making and suggest transgressing the field of art. Practices of curating are of interest for anthropological reflections on art, insofar as these new methods would "insist on a new set of relations between those knowledges"[53] which are visualized with the selection of artists and their artworks.

My consideration of the intersection between art and anthropology is grounded on these concepts. The product of a mutual field of discursive interaction acknowledges unlike practices, and reaches beyond the artwork every bit materialization of the creative person'southward inner images, or the exhibition as representation of the curator's contemporary concerns. Viktorin's 'appearance' and Canclini'southward 'imminence' open up many possibilities for reflecting on a specific art globe and its transcultural connections regarding contemporary fine art and/or contemporary visions for world-making.

Thomas Fillitzis a professor at the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Academy of Vienna. His enquiry, teaching and publications in visual anthropology focus on Biennial arts festivals, Global and local art and art markets, and Postcolonial theories.

---

Notes:

[1] In this article I consider art world as the artistic achievements that are locally negotiated as contemporary art between artists, art theorists/historians/critics, and curators.

[2] Irit Rogoff, "The Expanding Field," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial. A Philosophy of Curating(London et al.: Bloomsbury, [2013] 2015), p. 41.

[three] Okwui Enwezor, "The Postcolonial Constellation: Contemporary Art in a State of Permanent Transition," in Terry Smith, Okwui Enwezor, and Nancy Condee (eds), Antinomies in Art and Civilisation. Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity(Durham and London: Duke Academy Press, 2008), pp. 207–34; Hans Belting, "The Plurality of Art Worlds and the New Museum," in Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel (eds), The Global Contemporary and the Ascent of New Art Worlds(Cambridge, MA and Karlsruhe: The MIT Press and ZKM/Center for Art and Media, 2013), pp. 246–54.

[four] Jacques Rancière, Malaise dans fifty'esthétique(Paris: Éditions Galilée, 2004).

[five] Ruth B. Phillips, "The Value of Disciplinary Difference: Reflections on Art History and Anthropology at the Beginning of the Twenty-Commencement Century," in Mariet Westermann (ed.), Anthropologies of Art, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute (Williamstown, MA., New Haven and London: Yale Academy Press, 2005), pp. 242–59.

[6] Arnd Schneider and Christopher Wright (eds), Between Art and Anthropology. Contemporary Ethnographic Practice(Oxford and New York: Berg, 2010); Arnd Schneider and Christopher Wright (eds), Anthropology and Art Practice(London et al.: Bloomsbury, 2013).

[7] Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells. Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship(London and New York: Verso, 2012), p. 7.

[viii] ibid., p. 2.

[9] Cf. Grant Kester,The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context(Durham and London: Duke University Printing, 2011), p. 9.

[10] Holland Cotter, "Venice Biennale Lacks Relevance," The New York Times International Weekly, (Der Standard, half-dozen June, 2017), p. four.

|eleven] Mattias Viktorin, "On Timely Appearances. Literature, Art, Anthropology," in Helena Wulff (ed.), The Anthropologist as Writer. Genres and Contexts in the Twenty-First Century(New York and London: Berghahn, 2016), pp. 230–42.

[12] Néstor García Canclini, Art Beyond Itself: Anthropology for Lodge without a Storyline(Durham and London: Duke Academy Printing, 2014).

[13] Arjun Appadurai, "The Capacity to Aspire: Civilization and the Terms of Recognition," in Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton (eds), Culture and Public Action(Stanford:Stanford Academy Press, 2004), pp. 59–84. Available online: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/243991468762305188/pdf/ (accessed November 23, 2017).

[14] ibid., p. 84.

[fifteen] Nikos Papastergiadis, "Spatial Aesthetics: Rethinking Contemporary Fine art," in Terry Smith, Okwui Enwezor, and Nancy Condee (eds), Antinomies in Fine art and Civilisation. Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity(Durham and London: Duke Academy Printing, 2008), pp. 363–81.

[16] ibid., p. 376.

[17] Jean-Paul Martinon, "Introduction," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial, pp. 1–13.

[xviii] See Thomas Fillitz, Zeitgenösssische Kunst aus Afrika. Vierzehn Künstler aus Côte d'Ivoire und Bénin(Vienna: Böhlau, 2002), pp. 108–xix. Although the research was in 1997 on contemporary art of Africa, it was non an overall local survey. I instead focused on item artists who were locally acknowledged equally gimmicky ones.

[19] ibid., pp. 46–8. Vohou-vohouwas the most acknowledged advanced fine art motility in Côte d'Ivoire in the 1990s, so also labelled every bit École d'Abidjan[Thomas Fillitz, Zeitgenösssische Kunst aus Afrika; Yacouba Konaté, "Art and Social Dynamics in Côte d'Ivoire: The Position of Vohou-Vohou," in Gitti Salami and Monica Blackmun Visonà (eds), A Companion to Mod African Art (Malden, MA. and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), pp. 371–88].

[20] Arjun Appadurai, "The Chapters to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition," p. 84.

[21] Kojo Fosu, 20^thCentury Fine art of Africa(Accra: Artists Alliance, [1986] 1993), pp. 64–70; Chika Okeke, "The Quest for a Nigerian Art: Or a Story of Art from Zaria to Nuskka," in Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor (eds.), Reading the Contemporary. African Fine art from Theory to the Marketplace(London: inIVA, 1999), p. 150.

[22] Pierre Lods founded the Poto-Potoschool in 1951. Senghor appointed him in 1961 equally teacher at the school of fine arts of Dakar.

[23] Johannes Fabian, Moments of Freedom. Anthropology and Popular Culture(Charlottesville and London: The Academy of Virginia Press, 1998), p. 51.

[24] Yacouba Konaté, "7 Past 12," in Secrétariat général (ed.), Dak'Art 2006, catalogue (Bresson, France: Les Deux-Ponts, 2006), p. 32.

[25] ibid.

[26]"Ta voix nous dit la République, que nous

Dresserons la Cité dans le jour bleu

Dans 50'égalité des peuples fraternels. Et nous

nous répondons : « Présents, ô Guélowâr ! »."

(a part of the poem'south citation at the entrance to the exhibition, trans. by the author). The poem was first published in the collection Hosties Noires(1948). Historically, Guélowârwas a noble dynasty at the top of the social hierarchy of the Serer society.

[27] Simon Njami, "La puissance voyante / The Seeing Ability," in Simon Njami (ed.), Réenchantements. La Cité dans le jour bleu / Reenchantments. The Metropolis in the Blue Daylight, Dak'Fine art 12, catalogue (Bielefeld and New York: Kerber Verlag, 2016), p. 38.

[28] Maqam: settlement, the shrine of a holy place, or the dissimilar Middle Eastern musical elements that are combined; Bidjocka's title: 'this is not my body, y'all cannot swallow it.'

[29] El Anatsui, "Sankofa: Go Back an' Pick': Three Studio Notes and a Conversation,"Third Text, 23 (7), 1993, p. 44.

[thirty] Khaatim(Wolof): talisman.

[31] Mattias Viktorin, "On Timely Appearances. Literature, Fine art, Anthropology."

[32] ibid., p. 231.

[33] ibid.

[34] ibid., pp. 231–2, italics by the writer.

[35] ibid., p. 237.

[36] ibid., p. 239.

[37]Nikos Papastergiadis, "Spatial Aesthetics: Rethinking Contemporary Art."

[38] ibid., p. 373.

[39] ibid., p. 375.

[forty] ibid.

[41] Jean-Paul Martinon and Irit Rogoff, "Preface," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial, p. ix.

[42] Néstor García Canclini, Art Beyond Itself.

[43] Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial.

[44] Néstor García Canclini, Art Across Itself, p. xiii.

[45] ibid., p. 28.

[46] Simon Njami, "La puissance voyante / The Seeing Power," p. 38.

[47] Jean-Paul Martinon, "Introduction," p. 4.

[48] Suzana Milevska, "Becoming-Curator," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial, pp. 65–71; Valeria Graziano, "The Politics of Remainder Fun," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial, pp. 151–60; Aneta Szyłak, "Curating Context," in Jean-Paul Martinon (ed.), The Curatorial, pp. 215–23.

[49] Irit Rogoff, "The Expanding Field," p. 44.

[l] ibid.

[51] See Nikos Papastergiadis, "Spatial Aesthetics: Rethinking Contemporary Art."

[52] Mattias Viktorin, "On Timely Appearances. Literature, Art, Anthropology," p. 231.

[53] Irit Rogoff, "The Expanding Field," p. 45.

kilianlatim1946.blogspot.com

Source: http://field-journal.com/issue-11/art-and-anthropology-different-practices-and-common-fields-of-intersection