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Modern and Contemporary African Art: A Collaborative Vanderbilt Student Research Project

Ben Enwonwu

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15. Chris Ofili, No Woman No Cry, 1998. Mixed Media, 96x72 in. Tate, London. No Woman No Cry was part of the exhibition for which Ofili won the Turner prize in 1998. The mixed media work incorporates oil paint, acrylic paint, graphite, polyester resin, printed paper, glitter, map pins, and elephant dung on canvas. The painting depicts a woman crying against a byzantine-esque gold printed background. Elephant dung is used to form the base the painting rests on, as well as the woman’s necklace. The woman depicted in the painting is Doreen Lawerence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, a victim of a racist attack. Newsprint images of Stephen Lawrence can be seen in the middle of the tears. The painting, with the weeping mother who is represented as a Madonna figure, is a play off the notion of a piéta. Ofili’s title for this work references the popular Bob Marley song of the same title and is representative of his incorporation of popular culture and music into his art.
16. Chris Ofili, The Adoration of Captain Shit, 1999. Mixed media, 96x72 in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. The Adoration of Captain Shit is part of a three part series featuring the superhero/soul singer Captain Shit. The mixed media in this work consists of acrylic paint, oil paint, paper collage, map pins, glitter, and elephant dung on linen. In the image, bodiless hands of different colors reach towards an abstract, cape-wearing figure. The background is composed of large stars with newsprint eyes and smaller stars on top of elephant dung. The work is supported by two pieces of dung reading “they adore.”
17. Chris Ofili, The Healer, 2008. Oil on Linen, Tate, London. The Healer depicts wilting yellow flowers against a dark, green and black background. The painting is one of Ofili’s more recent works produced in Trinidad that display a reduction in color palette and a shift away from mixed media. About The Healer, Ofili says, “it's about trying to paint the mystical nature of Trinidad. There's this bright yellow flowering tree here called the yellow poui that blossoms at certain times of the year with incredibly bright flowers. But overnight, or over a very short period of time, the flowers all fall off. You'll see one bright yellow tree, and the next day the flowers will be on the ground. Thinking about this I imagined that at night "the healer" feasts on poui flowers feverishly, and in the frenzy many of the flowers fall to the ground. I painted the first images of The Healer outdoors during a total lunar eclipse. He is born of the imagination sparked by the forms in the clouds hovering over the hills that night” (The Guardian. N.p., 20 Sept. 2009. Web).
18. Chéri Samba, "Condemnation without Judgment". 1989-90.
19. Chéri Samba. "Le Monde Vomissant". 2003.

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Ben Enwonwu

(Unfortunately, one is unable to locate a video interview with Ben Enwonwu because the celebrated artist died in 1994.)

Enwonwu's legacy is posthumously lauded and revered in the art world. Enwonwu, full name Odingwe Benedict Chukwukdibia Bonaventure Enwonwu, was born in 1921 in Onitsha, Nigeria. He studied Fine Arts at the Government Colleges in Ibadan and Umuahia under teacher and archaeologist Kenneth C. Murray; the two would evolve into a mentor-mentee pair, with Enwonwu later becoming his assistant. Enwonwu earned the Shell Petroleum scholarship in 1944, which funded his education in the United KingdomGoldsmith College, Ruskin College, Ashmolean College and the prestigious, world-renowned Slade School of Fine Art. He later enrolled in postgraduate studies in anthropology and ethnography at University of California and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, and earned a Master's in Social Anthropology at the University College of London.

Enwonwu was an incredibly celebrated and decorated artist: he held several professorial positions in addition to exhibiting his own work around the world. Queen Elizabeth II commissioned and sat for Enwonwu to create a sculpture in her honor when she visited Nigeria in 1956. He garnered many awards, including the Commonwealth Certificate in London for his artistic contributions by the Royal Institute of Art, and the National Order of Merit in Nigeria for his artistic contributions in his home country.

In the larger narrative of African Art History, Enwonwu constantly questioned the primitive, static box that Western artists and curators would put African creators in. He was a pioneering artist in the mid-century, marking a pivotal bridge between the colonial and the postcolonial. Enwonwu came of age as an artist at the same moment that modernization was taking hold. He saw the photograph as a neutral container, and was invested in the masquerade practice of Igbo culture and the dancing female figure; in his work he incorporated European easel painting, references to Igbo sculptural tradition, and Afro-Porteguese aesthetics. Enwonwu maintained a staunch refusal to be pigeonholed as an artist, and constantly explored consequences of social and political events and constructs.

Most famously he said, “I will not accept an inferior position in the art world. Nor have my art called African because I have not correctly and properly given expression to my reality. I have consistently fought against that kind of philosophy because it is bogus. European artists like Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck were influenced by African art. Everybody sees that and is not opposed to it. But when they see African artists who are influenced by their European training and technique, they expect that African to stick to their traditional forms even if he bends down to coping them. I do not copy traditional art. I like what I see in the works of people like Giacometti but I do not copy them. I knew Giacometti personally in England, you know. I knew he was influenced by African sculptures. But I would not be influenced by Giacometti, because he was influenced by my ancestors.”

Sources: http://benenwonwufoundation.org | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Enwonwu#Biography