Pan African Artists Index

WHAT IS THE PAN-AFRICAN ARTISTS INDEX? OR HOW A FEW SIMPLE QUESTIONS COULD HAVE PROMPTED A METHODOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE, EXCEPT THAT I BELIEVE THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO TRY TO SLEEP WELL

The Pan-African Artists Index is a list of artists who have images reproduced in books and catalogues that are essentially ‘African’ in theme, or in which Africa represents a significant component of the exhibition as a whole. The emphasis is on books that are pan-African in theme or which involve studies of a region or more than one African country, or group exhibitions featuring artists from different African countries. Publications that are exclusively national in focus or monographs on individual artists are currently excluded from this index. For references for national surveys and monographs, you can consult the website developed by the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African Art. For lists of artists from African countries you can consult the Contemporary Africa Database, a project of the Africa Centre in London. Data from journals will be entered at a later point.

Since the Pan-African Artists Index is primarily concerned with published literature on artists, much of which consists of exhibition catalogues, it is important to highlight that the Index is not a list of artists who have featured in exhibitions. If an artist was featured in a particular exhibition but their work is not illustrated in the catalogue they are not included here. Conversely an artist not featured in an exhibition who has an image reproduced in the catalogue is included in this Index.

Artists are organized alphabetically by family name, and there are vertical columns that correspond with decades. So, for example if a sculpture by Ernest Mancoba from 1936 features in a book by Okwui Enwezor from 2001, the 1930s column for Mancoba will register “Enwezor (2001)”. At this stage no distinction is made between the number of Mancoba’s from the 1930s in that same book, nor are there details such as whether images are in colour, what size they are, which page numbers they appear on, etc. To access more details on the Enwezor publication one should then consult the Pan-African Artists Bibliography that accompanies the Index.

Where multiple authors or editors are involved “&” follows the first authors name eg . “Oguibe & (1999). Since the emphasis is on publications rather than exhibitions, titles are entered under the name of the editor/s rather than curator/s unless the identity of the editors are difficult to glean from the catalogue, in which case the curators are cited. One notable exception is Dak’Art, where due to the collaborative nature of the projects all entries have been made under “Dak’Art”, followed by the relevant year, rather than under the names of individual editors... not entirely consistent with academic ‘norms’, but arguably reasonably user friendly.

The value of the Index is that is an easy reference eg. where do I find information on Sam Ntiro? It is also a source of information that can be analysed to identify and interpret trends eg. who first curated Bodys Isek Kingelez and how come he continues to feature in international exhibitions of contemporary African art, whereas Cheri Samba (who went ‘international’ in the same curatorial project as Kingelez) is seldom curated by Africans in the diaspora? Which decades are better represented through literature?

The reason for compiling a Pan-African Artists Index stemmed from a few simple questions: Was the perception that exhibitions of contemporary African art tended to circulate the same artists correct? Did African exhibitions in the West favour artists in the diaspora? If there was a noticeable shift from what Sylvester Ogbechie has dubbed the “Pigozzi paradigm’ (the emphasis on ‘neo-primitivism’ that emerged post 1989’s Magiciens de la Terre) towards conceptual modes of production that marked the ascent of the African diasporan uber-curator in the latter half of the 1990s, had this ‘regime change’ impacted on the selection of artists for international exhibitions?

Where things got complicated was when curators explored the boundaries of ‘Africa’ taking in not only African descendents but also seemingly all ‘black’ artists as well as any artists whose work was African in theme. Then there were exhibitions that made no specific reference to Africa but in exploring post-colonialism implicitly emphasized artists of African descent, or which dealt with African themes. Then there were international exhibitions on African soil that included artists who in other projects were assimilated as part of an African discourse, but could in this instance been chosen for reasons that may have little or nothing to do with ‘Africa’...

Then there were issues of an interdisciplinary nature... if eg. Tawadros includes an architect amongst her list of artists in Fault-Lines then that architect has been included here. In contrast when an ambitious project such as The Short Century encompasses a wide range of cultural production but uses chapters to separate them from each other, then I have not included the contents of the chapters that would usually be considered outside the parameters of the visual arts... at least not at this stage... but I have included the “Design” that features at Dak’Art... clearly subjectivity does come into deciding what to include or exclude... and I took a decision early on not to let this turn into a methodological nightmare... so if some choices baffle or annoy you feel free to communicate on the issue...

Mostly I have been guided by an approach that rather than enter into debate with the merits of the choices made by individual writers and curators, I should defer to that persons better judgement, even if there may be good reason to doubt their logic. The emerging policy has been that if I have to think about whether to include an artist or not, then I almost always err on the side of inclusivity. One thing I have done, which may or not have been a good idea, and which has been done in some of the publications themselves (eg Dak’Art) has been to identify artists not born or living on the continent as “Diaspora”. This does not mean that they are ‘less African”, nor does it mean that African born artists living elsewhere are not “diaspora”. It simply flags artists who, for the most part, are more likely to be found in “non-African” studies and exhibitions eg. Caribbean, British or Latin American projects. Of course the same can be said of many African born artists living elsewhere, particularly in the West, who feature in international biennales as “French”, “British” etc. However these artists are more commonly included in ‘African’ exhibitions than their counterparts of (sometimes distant) African descent, so for example, a Zimbabwean living in London has not been explicitly tagged “diaspora”.here, despite the fact that they are commonly referred to in these terms...

The point needs to be made that the pan-African artists index is a work-in-progress. It also reflects the extent to which I personally have access to published resources, which varies from time to time, as well as my capacity to capture and input data. Ultimately sustaining and developing this Index will require some financial support. In the first phase of its development it has been developed with no financial support whatsoever, and often in circumstances when a wiser person (or more responsible parent) may have prioritized putting time into paid work. Despite these limitations it is hoped that the Index is sufficiently credible to assist anyone conducting research on contemporary African art. Any observations, comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome. And last but not least, anyone who produces a book and wants to see the featured artists included in the Index is particularly welcome to donate a copy...

M.P.
27 November 2006