Hollywood icons, local demons.

Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony

Belger Arts Center University of Missouri-Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri August-October 27, 2000

Upon entering the gallery at the UMKC Belger Arts Center, I was greeted--and almost overwhelmed--by large colorful paintings combining both exotic and well-known imagery. As I began to go through "Hollywood Icons," attempting to decipher the stories portrayed and the images presented, I was intrigued by how the familiar and the unusual began to swap places. As a fairly new resident in the Midwest, I had not expected to see such provocative contemporary African art displayed in a local Kansas City gallery. The exhibition became for me both an introduction to the culture of the Midwest and a glimpse of a kind of African art that is usually seen only by Ghanaians.

The aptly titled "Hollywood Icons, Local Demons: Ghanaian Popular Paintings by Mark Anthony" featured eighteen paintings that averaged six feet high by seven feet wide. The size and the combination of image and writing made it feel like an exhibition of bizarre roadside billboards--the type you would pull over on I-35 to get a better look at. "Billboard" is an appropriate description, since these works are used in Ghana to advertise concert parties, all-night events that combine music, comedic performances, and a multiple-act play with a moral. Portraying typically three to five scenes from the plays, the paintings travel with the musicians and actors as they move from town to town. Upon arrival, troupe members strategically place them around town to lure people to the performance. To make these oversize paintings transportable, the artist makes them in two sections connected with hinges. They can then be folded and tossed on and off trucks--and they show the wear from this use and abuse.

All the examples in this exhibition were created by Mark Anthony, an outstanding artist who lives in the town of Swedru, Ghana. His early work included murals for bars, sign painting, and paintings on the sides of small passenger vans ("mammy trucks"). By the time the companion exhibition catalogue was written, however, he was devoting nearly all his time to concert-party paintings, and his works were reputed to increase attendance at the all-night events. During the twentieth century this type of painting became integrated into the arts of the communities, and instead of going to a European-run academic art school, Anthony was able to apprentice with his father.

The exhibition consists of sets of paintings for four different plays: When a Royal Dies, We Take Him Home; Some Rivalries Are Dangerous; If You Do Not Allow Your Brother to Climb; and The Judgement Day. The playwrights often base their plays on well-known stories that nevertheless explore current issues. Of particular interest are tales that reflect the social pressures brought about by rapid change and globalization. Each set portrays key, startling, or bizarre scenes from the plays, designed to attract attention and promote discussion as people walk or ride by.

The theme of The Judgement Day is familiar to both Americans and Ghanaians: a church leader uses Satanic powers to draw a large following and then, on Judgement Day, is claimed by Satan. The three paintings illustrating this tale are perhaps the easiest for a Midwestern audience to decipher. In the first, the minister stands in the pulpit looking out over his congregation, most of whom are stealing, embracing, or sleeping. The second shows an angel protecting a saint from Satan, here portrayed as a furry black beast with wings, horns, and a long red tongue. In the final painting the false clergyman gets his final due as Satan uses a shepherd's crook to snag him as he enters heaven. The imagery in all three paintings is familiar to the American but perhaps exotic for the Ghanaian: stained-glass windows; blond, winged angels; and white-robed ministers. Even Satan, although not portrayed as the red-skinned, pointy-tailed demon of American nightmares, is recognizable.

In contrast, both the story and much of the imagery for When a Royal Dies, We Take Him Home seem foreign to the Midwesterner but not to the Ghanaian. The story revolves around the competition for succession to the chieftaincy. The legitimate heir is a man of bad character. A second candidate, a man of good character, has also been named as heir. To become chief the two competitors must pass an ordeal in which the loser will die. The first man's mother promises the ghost of the former chief that she will let him marry her beautiful granddaughter if her son wins the chieftaincy. With this supernatural help, her son wins, but the mother immediately breaks her promise; she allows her innocent granddaughter to marry another, and then, when the bride goes on a journey, kills her. Because the bride is of royal blood, her husband has to return her body to her family, or his own sister must die. With other supernatural help, the widower finds and returns his wife's bones while exposing the evil grandmother.

To an American, the imagery in When A Royal Dies seems to come out of a Disney nightmare. In a culture that demands a happy ending, even if you have to change the outcome of the original tale, the dark and disastrous story is unsatisfying. The images also disturb because they are almost--but not quite--familiar: a tree with a smirking face directs two animal-headed and human-bodied creatures to kill the losing candidate; a man and a woman who are partially flayed and partially skeleton watch as Diawu, a bird with three human heads, a cobra tail, and human legs, gives the widower a flywhisk. This last character, seemingly a monster, is the elder of the ancestors, and he helps the widower find his wife's body. That is, he is the good guy, an unexpected twist for those raised on Disney, where all the good "guys" look like Cinderella's fairy godmother or Prince Charming. The Ghanaian audience, on the other hand, might have different first impressions.

The secret of this exhibition's success lay in one simple fact: what is familiar to the audience in the Midwest is exotic to the Ghanaian public and vice versa. Both the familiar and the foreign, from both cultures' points of view, appeared in the verbal or visual version of every tale. The labels that accompanied the paintings told the stories in clear and precise language. When a painting in a series was missing, it very helpfully appeared as a small photograph within the label. In Ghana, these works are placed throughout the town in no precise order, but the viewers usually know where the painting fits into the tale or can ask someone who has already been to the concert party. The Midwestern audience needed the sequence and the labels to understand the narrative.

The only unsuccessful element of "Hollywood Icons" was a small video station placed at the back of the exhibition. It was meant to show reaction to and conversation about the paintings by Ghanaian passersby. Unfortunately, not many people seemed to pass by, and when they did the videographer became as much a focus of their attention as the paintings. Rather than editing out the dead time, the videographer amused him- or herself by focusing in on the most sordid details in the work.

Overall the exhibition was excellent and well received. Craig Subler, director of the UMKC gallery, and Michelle Gilbert, curator of the exhibition and author of the accompanying catalogue, should be congratulated for a job well done.

The catalogue (72 pp., 17 b/w & 15 color photos; $15 softcover) is available from the UMKC Belger Arts Center.

ELISABETH L. CAMERON is an assistant professor in the Art History Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a consulting editor of African Arts.