Paper short abstract:

This paper examines Jeanne Maquet-Tombu's patronage of pattern books that document Congolese raffia mat designs and the motifs' names. I situate the design books within Maquet-Tombu's larger agenda to promote the Congoelse arts in the 1930s.

Paper long abstract:

As one of the founding members of the Association des Amis de l'Art Indigène, an advocate for the creation Musée de la Vie Indigène, member of the Union des Femmes Coloniales, and the wife of colonial administrator Marcel Maquet, Jeanne Maquet-Tombu was a vocal advocate for many projects promoting artistic endeavors in colonial-era Congo.

In 1939, Maquet-Tombu publishes a brief essay in the inaugural edition of Brousse. This article shares the local names and translations of several raffia mat motifs from the west of the Belgian Congo. In just a few short paragraphs, Maquet-Tombu's enthusiasm leaps from the page. Accompanying her published article, she also seems to have commissioned several pattern books documenting designs alongside their local names. These books are quite remarkable objects. In one variety, artists hand-colored grids to communicate designs, while in the second form, artists physically wove paper strips to re-create designs and illustrate techniques. This paper addresses Maquet-Tombu's interest in and documentation of Congolese raffia mats created in the 1930s—placing the mats, their artists, and their patrons in a wider historical context.

Paper short abstract:

Kofi Antubam (1922-1964) and Georges Niangoran-Bouah (1935-2002), both from Akan regions, studied with British and French patrons. As educators, they then patronized the cultural development of Ghana and Ivory Coast. This comparison examines how colonial policies shaped both forms of patronage.

Paper long abstract:

Recent publications have shed light on numerous expatriates who actively trained, sponsored and promoted African artists during the colonial and early post-colonial period. Such research provides nuanced views of the interactions between these foreign residents and the African intellectuals who were forming new cultural institutions for their nations after independence. Nigerian scholars, in particular, have interviewed artists, art historians, gallery owners and critics who, at some point in their careers, received some type of patronage by expatriates. A new research project compares the role of European patronage in the lives of two intellectuals rooted in Akan cultures split by the colonial border. One of these, Kofi Antubam (1922-1964) was a leading artist and educator in the Gold Coast/Ghana. The somewhat younger Georges Niangoran-Bouah (1935-2002), was a collector and notable scholar of the arts in Ivory Coast/Côte d'Ivoire. This comparative analysis of their contributions is part of a larger investigation of the lasting impact of British and French colonial policies on artists of Akan heritage, and the modern and contemporary art worlds in which they have worked. However, it also addresses a relatively unexplored facet of the colonial patronage of scholars in 20th century Africa, as well as considering the important contributions of African patrons in the rapidly changing cultural landscape of the 20th century.

Paper short abstract:

This paper critically examines the view of the linguist and art patron Ulli Beier on the involvement of the Austrian artist Susanne Wengers in the formation of modern aesthetic expressions within the context of the Yoruba worshippers in Oshogbo and the emergence of the New Sacred Art Movement.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to critically examine the work of the Austrian artist Susanne Wenger and her role within the New Sacred Art Movement, which was founded in the early 1960s in the city of Oshogbo in Nigeria. It focusses on the writings of Ulli Beier, Wengers first husband with whom she came to Nigeria in 1950. Much has been written on the artist Wenger, who was initiated as a priestess of Obàtálá, the Yoruba God of creation, and who made significant contributions to the reconstruction of the Sacred Grove on Oshogbo. Nevertheless, throughout their lives, Beier - connected to the emergence of the early Oshogbo artists through workshops, which were organized by him in the first place - strongly supported Wenger through his publications, recognizing her as the "European counterpart to Senghor, because in her, as in the great poet, two cultures are a perfect blended synthesis". Sharing a similar comprehension of a concept of art, which needs to leave the museums and be integrated into everyday life, therefore following Dubuffet's idea of "Art brut", this paper questions the view of Beier as an art patron on Wengers involvement in the formation of modern aesthetic expressions within the context of the Yoruba worshippers in Oshogbo. One of the central questions arising is: Can Wenger be regarded as an art patron herself, when her impact on the Yoruba artists such as Adebisi Akanjii was "to give these people back their self-respect", as Beier claims it?

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the nexus of art and patronage by unveiling certain networks in Khartoum crossing art education, collectors, writers, art critics and curators and last but not least the artists themselves. The role and work of the artist Kamala Ishaq will be the point of departure.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the nexus of art and patronage unveiling certain entanglements of Khartoums' recent art history. The role and work of the artist Kamala Ishaq will be the point of departure to investigate the layers and notions of these networks across art education, collecting, writing and curating. Spanning a period from the 1960s up to now, Kamala Ishaq, the most active and productive women artist in Sudan, left a huge impact on the art scene and continues to promote art making. To unfold critically the tangents of patronage through a mapping of interferences, this paper follows theoretically a diffractive reading as proposed by Donna Harraway, Karen Barad and Trinh Minh-Ha.

Paper short abstract:

The Copperbelt has been an important producer of cultural outputs, with the mining industry acting as indirect 'patron'. In the twenty-first century, Congo and Zambia's visual arts are on the rise on the international scene. Yet this creates a new set of complex patron-artist relationships.

Paper long abstract:

The mining region of the Copperbelt, which straddles the border between Zambia and the Katanga province of DRCongo, is known for its production of distinctive, often politically engaged, visual arts. These developed over the course of the late colonial period and the first decades of independence under the aegis of the mining industry. Not only did the mines support galleries and other similar initiatives over the years but informants overwhelmingly cite the large number of expatriates as being their bread-and-butter customers. In fact, Katanga's first art schools - the 'Hangar' and the Académie des Beaux-Arts - taught their pupils to create "naive paintings" designed to appeal to a European clientele. Today these dynamics have taken on a new form. The state-like paternalistic companies of old have gone, and art has more or less disenfranchised itself from the mining industry. Katangese artists, such as Sammy Baloji, have been able to do well in the new globalized world, while Zambia's reputation for expressive paintings is growing. Yet here lies the rub. In order to be successful, art has to make it on the international scene. This usually means exporting it to New York, London or Paris, often via a non-African facilitator, thereby ushering in a new set of complicated patron-artist relationships. This paper will explore the way in which painting in the Copperbelt has been, and continues to be, uncomfortably entangled with the region's industrial past, and the way in which contemporary artists deal with the new realities of the twenty-first century.

Paper short abstract:

My paper contributes towards understanding the recent developments of contemporary art production in Benin through an examination of different models of a transnationally oriented art patronage; in this context, I will focus on how the artists position themselves towards such new institutions.

Paper long abstract:

In the early 1990ies, the Beninese government was one of the main patrons of contemporary artists who involved them in a state-organized Vodun-Festival. Since then, religious themes played an important role in the arts of Benin. One decade later, the country has witnessed the emergence of transnational art institutions due to processes of a globalizing art world, but also because the Beninese government ceased to provide continuous culture patronage. In addition to the Institut Français, that coined Benin's cultural policy since the 1960s, institutions like the Fondation Zinsou or Le Centre appeared on the scene: they show a transnational orientation with regard to cooperation and fundraising, which eventually affects their exhibition policies and the distribution of art, but also the art production itself. Since then, references on religious themes in the arts became more subtle, artistic involvements with other subjects (like politics, urbanism, migration, or environment) and media (installation, performance, video art) more visible.

In my paper, I will argue that the processes of transnationalization have brought new forms of art patronage that allowed the artists to gain more independence from the government's expectations. These developments generated a diversification of artistic themes and media, yet new demands within the neoliberal field of the arts. My presentation seeks to contribute towards understanding contemporary art production in the Beninese context through an examination of the dynamics of a transnationally oriented art patronage; in this context, I will focus on how the artists position themselves towards these new institutions.