African Art and MuseumsReinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian andEdwardian England by Annie E. Coombes; African Art at the Harn Museum: Spirit Eyes,Human Hands by Robin PoynorReview by: Christa ClarkeArt Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code (Spring, 1996), pp. 105-107Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777818 .

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African Art and Museums

CHRISTA CLARKE

African Art and Museums

CHRISTA CLARKE

(production) and copy (reproduction). On the other hand, it indicates that Moholy approached his art as a signifying practice subject to the play of signs.

Indeed, language is key for Moholy's work insofar as it does and undoes what, bor-

rowing from Derrida, Kaplan calls "signature effects."2 Citing the charges of plagiarism lev- eled against Moholy during his lifetime, he notes the irony of these indictments for an artist who was working to undermine originality and

authorship. To demonstrate this point, Kaplan discusses Moholy's practice of numbering his

paintings instead of signing them, of signing them in the wrong places (i.e., not in the lower

right-hand corner), and of submitting his own name to dissemination within the work of art. These strategies, Kaplan argues, illuminate how the artistic subject is produced as an effect of sig- natures and discourse rather than preexisting them as a creative origin.

Kaplan stresses Moholy's interest in a wide range of photomechanical media. He main- tains as well that Moholy's photographs, pho- tograms, films, and so on, all dramatize the dissolution of identity signified by "production- reproduction." Moholy's work, Kaplan observes,

employs "a group of artistic strategies that dis-

place the human subject from the center of artis- tic action" (p. 13). His self-portrait photograms, in which the profile of his face is fleetingly regis- tered, perform, in Kaplan's words, "photogram- matical dissemblances of himself" (p. 94). Or, to cite another example, Moholy's photocollages abide by what Kaplan terms "collogic"; that is,

they stage the constructedness of identity through processes of enframing and "unnam-

ing." How such anti-ontology squares with

Moholy's arguments for medium purity, howev-

er, is an important question that Kaplan leaves unasked.

What is most absent from Kaplan's dis- cussion, however, is sustained visual analysis. When specific images are addressed, the author either treats them as allegories of theory and not

(production) and copy (reproduction). On the other hand, it indicates that Moholy approached his art as a signifying practice subject to the play of signs.

Indeed, language is key for Moholy's work insofar as it does and undoes what, bor-

rowing from Derrida, Kaplan calls "signature effects."2 Citing the charges of plagiarism lev- eled against Moholy during his lifetime, he notes the irony of these indictments for an artist who was working to undermine originality and

authorship. To demonstrate this point, Kaplan discusses Moholy's practice of numbering his

paintings instead of signing them, of signing them in the wrong places (i.e., not in the lower

right-hand corner), and of submitting his own name to dissemination within the work of art. These strategies, Kaplan argues, illuminate how the artistic subject is produced as an effect of sig- natures and discourse rather than preexisting them as a creative origin.

Kaplan stresses Moholy's interest in a wide range of photomechanical media. He main- tains as well that Moholy's photographs, pho- tograms, films, and so on, all dramatize the dissolution of identity signified by "production- reproduction." Moholy's work, Kaplan observes,

employs "a group of artistic strategies that dis-

place the human subject from the center of artis- tic action" (p. 13). His self-portrait photograms, in which the profile of his face is fleetingly regis- tered, perform, in Kaplan's words, "photogram- matical dissemblances of himself" (p. 94). Or, to cite another example, Moholy's photocollages abide by what Kaplan terms "collogic"; that is,

they stage the constructedness of identity through processes of enframing and "unnam-

ing." How such anti-ontology squares with

Moholy's arguments for medium purity, howev-

er, is an important question that Kaplan leaves unasked.

What is most absent from Kaplan's dis- cussion, however, is sustained visual analysis. When specific images are addressed, the author either treats them as allegories of theory and not

as dense texts in themselves with their own

"graphic resistances" (p. 3), or he discusses them so selectively that important nuances are overlooked. Given Kaplan's deconstructive

method, the maintenance of the hierarchy of word over image is surprising and disappointing.

Despite these objections, Biographical Writings is a welcome, speculative experiment in which writing mimics the qualities of the object under discussion. Kaplan demonstrates a remarkable agility in the deconstructive twists and turns of his argument as he weaves together Moholy's visual art, written texts, and biograph- ical events. His writing proceeds as a prolifera- tion of puns and etymological chains in which

meanings embroider upon one another to excess. Such a writing at the "limits of meaning" (p. 9), Kaplan argues, is the only method that realizes the model set by Moholy's "production- reproduction" in its instability and dissolution of authorial mastery. If Picturing Modernism and

Biographical Writings follow radically different

paths to Moholy, they both take advantage of this timely occasion to reconsider the meaning of his career, the objects he produced, as well as how we think and write about photography and its histories.

Notes

1. A few of the events that marked the centennial of

Moholy's birth are as follows: from June 27 to October 8,

1995, the J. Paul Getty Museum exhibited its collection of

Moholy photographs and published Katherine Ware's In

Focus: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum,

1995); on October 20, 1995, the University of Delaware held a Moholy symposium accompanied by a film series and small

exhibition of his artwork.

2. See, for example, Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event

Context," in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chica-

go: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 307-30.

as dense texts in themselves with their own

"graphic resistances" (p. 3), or he discusses them so selectively that important nuances are overlooked. Given Kaplan's deconstructive

method, the maintenance of the hierarchy of word over image is surprising and disappointing.

Despite these objections, Biographical Writings is a welcome, speculative experiment in which writing mimics the qualities of the object under discussion. Kaplan demonstrates a remarkable agility in the deconstructive twists and turns of his argument as he weaves together Moholy's visual art, written texts, and biograph- ical events. His writing proceeds as a prolifera- tion of puns and etymological chains in which

meanings embroider upon one another to excess. Such a writing at the "limits of meaning" (p. 9), Kaplan argues, is the only method that realizes the model set by Moholy's "production- reproduction" in its instability and dissolution of authorial mastery. If Picturing Modernism and

Biographical Writings follow radically different

paths to Moholy, they both take advantage of this timely occasion to reconsider the meaning of his career, the objects he produced, as well as how we think and write about photography and its histories.

Notes

1. A few of the events that marked the centennial of

Moholy's birth are as follows: from June 27 to October 8,

1995, the J. Paul Getty Museum exhibited its collection of

Moholy photographs and published Katherine Ware's In

Focus: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum,

1995); on October 20, 1995, the University of Delaware held a Moholy symposium accompanied by a film series and small

exhibition of his artwork.

2. See, for example, Jacques Derrida, "Signature Event

Context," in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chica-

go: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 307-30.

MATTHEW SIMMS is a doctoral candidate in the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University. He is currently

researching a dissertation on the relations between drawing and painting in late nineteenth-century France.

MATTHEW SIMMS is a doctoral candidate in the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University. He is currently

researching a dissertation on the relations between drawing and painting in late nineteenth-century France.

Annie E. Coombes. Reinventing Africa:

Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian

England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. 280 pp.; 112 b/w ills. $45.00

Robin Poynor. African Art at the Har Museum: Spirit Eyes, Human Hands, exh. cat. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. 237 pp.; 17 color ills., 119 b/w. $49.95

A nie Coombes's Reinventing Africa:

Museums, Material Culture and Popu- lar Imagination in Late Victorian and

Edwardian England is an in-depth analysis of British perceptions of Africa and African culture at the turn of the century, beginning with the colonial scramble for African territories in 1890 and ending with the advent of World War I.

Specifically, she addresses "the relationship between that knowledge of Africa and the African claiming to be 'objective truth,' through the discourse on African culture and society pro- duced within the emergent anthropological establishment, and that image of Africa sus- tained in the popular consciousness as 'received'

knowledge" (p. 3). Coombes, who teaches art

history and cultural studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, presents a series of case studies closely examining that relationship in two cultural arenas: collections of African artifacts and large-scale exhibitions. She considers both on a regional as well as national level. Her analy- sis highlights the complex, and often conflicting, nexus of interests that constructed Africa for an

equally diverse British public. The expansion of the British Empire

forms the historical backdrop for Coombes's research, a period that witnessed-not coinci-

dentally-the establishment of anthropology as a science. Born of the 18th-century interest in taxonomic models, anthropology developed as a

discipline primarily concerned with differences

among various races. Anthropological theories

Annie E. Coombes. Reinventing Africa:

Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian

England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. 280 pp.; 112 b/w ills. $45.00

Robin Poynor. African Art at the Har Museum: Spirit Eyes, Human Hands, exh. cat. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. 237 pp.; 17 color ills., 119 b/w. $49.95

A nie Coombes's Reinventing Africa:

Museums, Material Culture and Popu- lar Imagination in Late Victorian and

Edwardian England is an in-depth analysis of British perceptions of Africa and African culture at the turn of the century, beginning with the colonial scramble for African territories in 1890 and ending with the advent of World War I.

Specifically, she addresses "the relationship between that knowledge of Africa and the African claiming to be 'objective truth,' through the discourse on African culture and society pro- duced within the emergent anthropological establishment, and that image of Africa sus- tained in the popular consciousness as 'received'

knowledge" (p. 3). Coombes, who teaches art

history and cultural studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, presents a series of case studies closely examining that relationship in two cultural arenas: collections of African artifacts and large-scale exhibitions. She considers both on a regional as well as national level. Her analy- sis highlights the complex, and often conflicting, nexus of interests that constructed Africa for an

equally diverse British public. The expansion of the British Empire

forms the historical backdrop for Coombes's research, a period that witnessed-not coinci-

dentally-the establishment of anthropology as a science. Born of the 18th-century interest in taxonomic models, anthropology developed as a

discipline primarily concerned with differences

among various races. Anthropological theories

ART JOURNAL ART JOURNAL

105 105

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regarding racial difference were conveyed to the

public through exhibitions of African material culture and displays of Africans themselves.

Thus, a central theme of this book is the con- struction of racial difference through spectacle, defined by Coombes as "the structural and dra- matic means-the tropes-by which the British constituted a mythic Africa" (p. 85). Because these speculatory devices relied to a certain extent upon science to provide authenticity, a related concern for Coombes is the definition and scope of the public domain of anthropologi- cal knowledge of Africa in Britain.

One of the ways in which Coombes ana-

lyzes the complex relationship between the pop- ular and the scientific is through a study of the

display of Africans at large-scale national and

regional exhibitions. While mock African villages and carefully choreographed dramas provided entertainment for a broad public, Coombes

emphasizes "the degree to which references to

ethnography and anthropology, if not their the- 106 oretical premises, were also exploited as a means

of ensuring that the event would be credited with at least a veneer of authenticity" (p. 87). The scientific veneer of these displays facilitated the perpetuation (and acceptance) of racial

stereotypes, which had, as Coombes convincing- ly demonstrates, differing ideological ends. The

frequent portrayal of African women as down- trodden and oppressed, for example, is inter-

preted by Coombes as a veiled reminder to British women of their relatively privileged status in light of the burgeoning feminist movement.

The chapters focusing on ethnographic collections propose the museum as another site for the dissemination of scientific knowledge regarding Africa to a diverse public. With the

rapid development of regional and national col- lections under British imperial expansion, the nascent discipline of museum ethnography struggled to demonstrate its relevance to both the state and the public. In her analysis, Coombes views the physical arrangement of an

ethnographic collection as articulating a web of connected interests. Thus, typological classifica- tion of material culture in museums from primi- tive to complex not only demonstrated the

evolutionary theories of anthropology, but also served national interests in justifying the need for technological advancement in the guise of colonization. The often contradictory nature of such interests is strikingly demonstrated by Coombes through her examination of the tortu- ous process whereby the technically sophisticat- ed, cast copper-alloy sculptures from Benin, Nigeria, came to stand-paradoxically-for both British manhood and African savagery.

Coombes's meticulously detailed picture of British perceptions of African artifacts leads her to conclude that the application of aesthetic criteria to material culture was neither engen- dered by nor limited to European modernists. She notes that the official catalogue for the Stan-

ley and African Exhibition of 1890, for instance, clearly states that the arrangement of objects was artistic as opposed to scientific. And in her

chapter on missionary exhibitions, Coombes stresses that, unlike their secular counterparts, displays sponsored by religious organizations often presented Africans as skilled craftsmen. This seemingly enlightened approach was, Coombes contends, ultimately self-serving as

part of an ecclesiastical strategy for obtaining government support for the establishment of technical schools in Africa. Yet while Coombes

carefully documents the diverse sectors of British

society that influenced the development of aes- thetic criteria for judging African material cul-

ture, she tends to gloss over their specific impact on collections. For instance, illustrations from W. D. Webster's mail order catalogue of ethno-

graphic "specimens" from 1896 (figs. 73 and 74) provide a tantalizing glimpse of the market for African material culture that Coombes does not pursue.

In her final chapter on the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908, the author explores the ways in which Africa served as a foil for the construc- tion of biological and cultural hierarchies. This

chapter expands on a theme Coombes sustains

throughout the book: that perceptions of Africa were often motivated by British anxieties over

self-definition, such as the threat to racial purity caused by miscegenation. Coombes concludes her book by demonstrating what is hinted at from the outset, that ultimately British percep- tions of Africa reveal more about "European interests in African affairs and about the coloniz-

er, than they do about Africa and the African over this period" (p. 3).

he revisionist approach Coombes takes to her subject highlights the intersections of

class and gender in the production of racialized

knowledge regarding Africa. Yet she is careful to avoid all-encompassing generalizations in her

analyses, stressing instead the complex network of such interrelationships by focusing on specific institutions, events, and individuals. Particularly noteworthy is the attention given to African

agency within the confines of the colonial encounter. She offers, for instance, a compelling account of West African criticism of British colo- nial policy voiced through influential periodicals in both Africa and Britain. While Coombes

emphasizes that her study is not primarily con- cerned with discourse generated by Africans, she

presents clear evidence that such perspectives are

sorely missing from accounts of Western history. Coombes's wealth of empirical informa-

tion is at times obscured by dense, theoretical

language that inhibits the book's accessibility. Her rhetoric takes a combative turn in an epi- logue that centers around a critique of the West- ern celebration of "hybridity" in non-Western material culture. While intended to demonstrate the relevance of Coombes's historical study to

contemporary debates over the status and inter-

pretation of African material culture, the essay seems misplaced in this otherwise well-reasoned book. Such minor distractions notwithstanding, the combination of thoughtful analysis and

meticulously detailed research makes Coombes's book not only a significant contribution to a number of disciplinary interests, but an inspira- tion for other localized studies of the colonial encounter.

Coombes's probing analysis provides an

interesting point of departure for a discussion of Robin Poynor's African Art at the Ham Museum:

Spirit Eyes, Human Hands, leading one to seek the nexus of interests that resulted in this institu- tional collection. According to the foreword by Harn Museum director Budd Harris Bishop, African art was acquired by the University of Florida in the 1960s primarily for a study collec- tion. The initial collection was considerably expanded in the years following the 1987 open- ing of the Harn Museum. The overwhelming majority of the works in this catalogue, and pre- sumably in the collection as a whole, were donated by Rod McGalliard, a Tampa attorney and art collector.

The development of the collection of African art at the Harn Museum, however, is not the focus of this book. Instead, Poynor's themat- ic approach situates the objects in a framework that explores the intersecting worlds of the spiri- tual and physical. The "spirit eyes" of the title refers to the conception of a sacred place as the

face, or eye, of a spirit among many African soci- eties. Poynor states: "Views into the other world from either side are facilitated by art forms, which may thus be seen as spirit eyes looking into this world and a means for human eyes to look into the other. Art serves to allow manipula- tion from one world to another and thus can be seen as spirit hands at work in the sacred domain" (p. 35).

In his introductory essay, Poynor considers the multitude of ways in which the spirit worlds are negotiated by humans. In a lucid and accessi- ble manner, he discusses the significance of

shrines, sacred places, ritual acts and perfor- mances, and divine beings in several African cul- tures. Poynor clearly tries to incorporate African terms and concepts in his essay in order to demonstrate not only shared beliefs found among diverse societies but also fluctuations in meaning.

The collection as a whole is heavily weighted toward Nigeria, with additional works from Cameroon, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana,

Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Mali. Poynor, an associate professor of art at the University of Florida and guest curator of the exhibition this book accompanies, played a sig- nificant role in the development of this collec-

tion, according to Bishop (pp. xi-xii), presumably as an advisor to McGalliard. This may be reflect- ed in the disproportionate emphasis on art from southern Nigeria, an area in which Poynor has

SPRING 1996

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conducted field research. The works represented are primarily masks and figural sculptures in

wood, object types most easily assimilated into Western categories of the fine arts. Exceptions to this are two full-body masks from Nigeria, an elaborate Yoruba egungun costume composed of strips of fabric with attachments of metal and cowrie shells, and an appliqu6ed body covering intended to be worn with an Igbo mmuo mask.

The text that accompanies the actual cat-

alogue of the collection stresses the geographical and cultural context of individual objects. Side-

stepping the thorny issue of art versus artifact,

Poynor makes no attempt to judge the quality of these works, recognizing the Western aesthetic

assumptions that underlie this loaded term. The author is to be commended for his use of con- textual photographs throughout the book, which allow the reader to view similar objects in their indigenous contexts. These photographs occasionally provide a springboard for art histor- ical discussions of style, as Poynor suggests the

possibility of the same artist/workshop in a few

of these comparisons. A puzzling aspect of the book is its geographic organization, which

begins with the Cameroon grassfields and con- cludes with Mali, presumably in an effort to pro- vide such classification with a new twist by reversing the direction.

Spiritually oriented art is defined broadly by Poynor to encompass the majority of the

objects in the Harn Museum collection. Thus, the

catalogue addresses the divine character of royal authority through carved wooden ancestral heads from the kingdom of Benin as well as pres- tige objects from palaces in the Cameroon grass- fields. Shrine figures include those for personal use, such as the Igbo ikenga sculpture from

Nigeria, and those utilized by entire households, as in the Moba bawoong tchitcheri figure from

Togo. Obviously, not all of the works fit com-

fortably within this framework. A door frame from the Fungom area of Cameroon, for

instance, seems only marginally related to the

expression of religious beliefs. For a fairly recent university collection,

the catalogue is a commendable effort with an attractive layout and numerous photographic illustrations and line drawings. While not break-

ing new theoretical ground, Poynor does an admirable job of providing a sense of the rich cultural background of the artworks. The suc- cinct presentation of the role of art in African

religious systems in his introductory essay will be

particularly useful for undergraduates or other novices to African cultural studies. Certainly, Poynor's book fulfills the aspirations stated in the introduction by his mentor Roy Sieber, Rudy Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus at Indiana Uni-

versity: "Perhaps the best that scholarship can

hope to accomplish is to try to build a bridge to the cultural bases and beliefs shared by the members of the societies that gave rise to the works of art" (p. xvi). -

CHRISTA CLARKE, a lecturer at George Washington

University, is completing her dissertation, "Defining Taste:

African Art Collecting and Aesthetic Judgment in the

United States, 1910-40," at the University of Maryland.

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A ILI L

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