Johanna M.C. Agthe: 1941-2005.

Professor Till Forster (University of Basel):

Johanna Agthe had been a distant colleague until I took over Iwalewa-Haus in Bayreuth from Ulli Beier in 1997. Indeed, I had known her publications since I had been an undergraduate student and later used them in my own teaching. However, it was not until the late 1990s that we met in Bayreuth and Frankfurt, where she was curator of the Africa department of the Museum fur Volkerkunde (later Museum der Weltkulturen). We had not many opportunities to cooperate, but whenever we did, I was immediately reminded of her publications: She carefully examined every argument as well as every object, always trying to bridge the gap between anthropological and art historical approaches. She documented every object with equal care and very much in the tradition of the older German anthropological material culture school.

However, Johanna Agthe always hinted at the more general questions. Already in her first major exhibition catalogue, Kunst? Handwerk in Afrika im Wandel (Art? Changing craftwork in Africa), published in 1975, she was addressing the issue of changing art practices in Africa and how this translated into our conceptions of art and artifact. This topic often reemerged in the discussions we had when we were adapting exhibitions of Iwalewa-Haus for the different audience at the Frankfurt Museum. In 2000, the staff of Iwalewa and postgraduate students of Bayreuth University talked intensively with her about the notion of "work" in African art and also on gender perspectives therein. I remember these dialogues as vivid, at times controversial, but Johanna Agthe's sense of humor and dedication to understand the other's viewpoint made these exchanges more fruitful than many encounters with renowned professors. My memory of her as a scholar and a person is linked to her often informal but substantial influence on the discussion of art and artifact in Germany over three decades.

Elsbeth Court (School of Oriental and African Studies):

This memoir is being written in London while Johanna Agthe's burial service is taking place in Hamburg (March 31, 2005). Professionally, she strove for a holistic understanding of the visual arts in eastern Africa as encompassing all expressive practices. She was foremost a museum anthropologist--a maker of collections and exhibits--but she was also a scholar: Her publications comprise a sizeable percentage of the studies of post-independence art in Kenya. From the mid-1970s, due in part to her experience at Elimo Njau's Paaya-Paa Gallery, her annual field visits alerted her to the scope of art in East Africa and she took to documenting its contemporary production, beginning with Wegzeichen: Kunst aus Ostafrika, 1974-89 (1990). In a letter to me dated October 10, 1997, Agthe noted that she put "much weight on artist's comments of their own work ... it is not sufficient for me to read just summaries ... 'about them' ... I see the main task (at least for the moment) in talking 'with them' and make them talk for themselves." Her best-known project, Bilder aus Traumen: Jak Katarikawe, Uganda (2001) concerns the painter Jak Katarikawe. However, her first monograph, Ich babe sie studiert: Joel Oswaggos Zeichnungen und Erzahlungen uber die Freikirchen bei den Luo (Kenya) (1991) and exhibition featured Joel Oswaggo's drawings of the independent church movement amongst the Luo. Her final essay, appearing in Thelathini: 30 Faces of Contemporary Art in Kenya (2003), is also about Oswaggo and in March 2005, he spoke about her at the book's launch.

The contradictions surrounding contemporary "African" art are legion; the changes it represents are both problematic and vital, indeed constitute the regeneration of culture. By embracing this field, Johanna was plagued by persistent and particular sets of misunderstandings that continue to have salience. In Nairobi, the artists with whom she interacted did not understand that she was primarily a researcher; she bought their paintings, interviewed them, organized exhibitions in Germany, but she was uninterested in commercial dealing. In Frankfurt, most anthropologists had difficulty in comprehending modern art from outside Europe--especially the art of East Africa, which did not obviously illustrate ethnic traditions--and struggled with its inclusion in their museums. Agthe diplomatically, via UNESCO, instigated Galerie 37, a special space for new art on the premises of the Frankfurt Museum. Wherever she was, Johanna was ahead of her time. She had been looking forward to being in London during the "Africa05" visual arts season, especially to see the changes in the display of African art at the British Museum, where once she had been a research visitor.

She had a wonderful talent for friendship; how well she cared and shared. What was very special were her visual puns. My favorite is her 1998 greeting card: "Behind," the caption to a photograph of the Frankfurt Museum under renovation, wrapped up like a Christo installation. Specifically, the photo refers to delays on site when she had been acting director, but metaphorically it is a treasure--a very big delay, a burden, a cover-up, a surprise to be revealed.

Ulrich and Marisa v. PoschingerCamphausen (collectors, Bonn, Germany):

We first met Dr. Agthe at the Paaya-Paa Gallery, Nairobi, in 1974 because of our interest in sculpture. We were surprised to hear that a German public institution, indeed the Frankfurt Museum fur Volkerkunde (later Museum der Weltkulturen), was interested in building up a collection of contemporary work by local artists. Our discussion with her was enlightening and made us change our view. We had just arrived in Kenya and were profoundly confused by the local artwork, the ways of expression. We lost contact with Dr. Agthe for many years, meeting again in 1989 when she presented a cross-section of the contemporary collections at the Frankfurt Museum, and again in 1990 and 1991 when Jak Katarikawe came to Germany for several shows, including the Galerie 37 retrospective at the Frankfurt Museum.

Johanna Agthe created a collection of contemporary art from Africa, mostly from East Africa, that to our knowledge is unique. The exceptional quality of the collection is based on her respect for the artists' work and their conditions for practice. This she supported with the old-fashioned scrutiny of her profession: with meticulous documentation of each and every piece backed up with very many interviews with the artists. Johanna Agthe saw the collection as a continuation of her custodial work, documenting times of change, economic pressure, desire for maintaining traditions, ridiculing vain efforts for adaptation, hardship, excesses, and also turmoil. This was seen in her exhibition "Tagwerke" (Aspects of a day's work) in 1999. She also had a very good eye and understanding for beauty and composition, qualities seen in the exhibition "Bilder aus Traumen: Jak Katarikawe."

Dr. Agthe's dream was to regard the Frankfurt collection as a basis for future interaction with institutions of contemporary art and culture in Africa. May this dream of Dr. Johanna Agthe be realized and a continuous exchange become practice one day.

Bettina Kubanek (book and exhibition designer):

Following our enjoyable cooperation on "Tagewerke," an exhibition on the theme of work in Africa, Johanna showed me the Frankfurt Museum's collection of paintings by Jak Katarikawe. They affected me not immediately, but gradually; as we went through her extensive interviews with Jak and files of documents about him, I understood what a unique project she had generated through her meticulous research over many years. Indeed, for "Tagewerke" we had already used many artists' quotes. This next venture provided the opportunity to shape a detailed portrait of an African artist, not merely by showing his paintings, but displaying them in relation to his stories and environment.

I could have not anticipated how much optimism would be needed to realize the project "Bilder aus Traumen," which met so many complications. Soon after we started, Johanna's fatal disease was diagnosed. Nevertheless, she continued planning, including a visit to Kenya in order to initiate the exhibition's tour to Kampala and Nairobi. This exciting prospect motivated us during the difficult months prior to the exhibition's opening in Frankfurt in Autumn 2001. Johanna prepared the complex catalogue text in German and English, despite increasing tiredness and weakness, while having to cope with and endure the stress of persistent interference from the museum's management. Despite her intense efforts, the exhibition has yet to be viewed in Nairobi and Kampala. She once wrote: "... actually this would follow exactly my concept which I always intended to realize: not only taking from Africa, but giving back in return, co-operating, learning from each other, not only teaching the supposedly more advanced." I miss our vivid, mutual exchanges while I continue to turn to Johanna in my thoughts.

Sidney Kasfir (Emory University):

I first came to know Johanna as the author of Wegzeichen: Signs (1990), a 500-page bilingual compendium of East African art and interviews with artists. I last saw her ill October 2004 at the Wurzburg train station, where she had come from her nearby cancer clinic to meet me. She was heavily bundled in a dark brown wool coat and hat, under which her face looked pale and childlike, but she still insisted on helping me with my luggage, ordering tea, and generally taking charge. When we parted I wanted to give her something as a memento, so I handed her my copy of Edward Jones's novel The Known World, which I'd been reading on the train. She later wrote to me to say she knew very little about American slavery and that the book had astonished her. It was characteristic of Johanna that she remained intellectually vivacious to the very end of her life. There had been a chance that an experimental treatment might give her another year, but she knew it was unlikely. Yet despite her poor prognosis, she had formed detailed plans to write a history of her family and had gone ahead with the preparations. Now someone else will have to complete it, but her many other accomplishments will ensure that her work is required reading for the next generation of Africanists. With the Galerie 37 project, she already set the gold standard by which curatorial innovation in large ethnology museums can be measured.

Johanna Agthe--Select Publications Modern Art in Africa

1975

Kunst? Handwerk in Afrika im Wandel. Roter Faden zur Ausstellung 2. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

"Kunst? Handwerk in Afrika im Wandel: Bericht mit Fotos fiber die Ausstellung." Kunst und Handwerk 8:280-83.

1987

"Erkennen und berichten: moderne Kunst in Afrika un in der Dritten Welt." Stamm 2:7.

"Joel Oswaggu (Kenya): Der Bau eines Getreidespeichers." Stamm 2:12.

"Moderne Kunst aus Afrika." Stamm 2:6.

1990

Ed. and trans. Warum ich male; Kinderkatalog zur Ausstellung "Zeitzeichen. Neue Kunst aus Afrika." By Eric Ndlovu. Rotes Fadchen 7. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

Wegzeichen--Signs: Kunst aus Ostafrika, 1974-89. Sammlung 5. Frankurt a.M.: Museum for Volkerkunde.

1991

Ich habe sie studiert: Joel Oswaggos Zeichnungen und Erzahlungen uber die Freikirchen bei den Luo (Kenya). Ed. with Josef F. Thiel. Interim 12. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

Mit Pinsel und Meissel: zeitgenossische afrikanische Kunst. With Christina Mundt. Interim 11. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

Wegzeichen: Blatter zu den Monatsausstellungen der ostafrikanischen Kunstler Etale Polycarp Sukuro u.a. im Rahmen der Ausstellung "Zeitzeichen" im Museum fur Volkerkunde. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

1992

"Einblick: Ausstellung 'Zeitzeichen. Neue Kunst aus Afrika.'" Stature 6:4-5.

1993

Begegnung mit den Anderen: die zeitgenossische Kunst in den nicht-europaischen Landern, ed. Hamdi el Attar. Vol. 2. Kassel: Projektgruppe Stoffwechsel.

Catalog contributions. Entdeckung: zeitgenossische Kunst aus Ostafrika; Ausstellung des Stadtmuseums Ludwigshafen, ed. Peter Ruf. Ludwig-shafen: Stadtmuseum.

1994

"Neue Aufgaben: die Galerie zeitgenossischer Kunst: ein Beitrag zur UNESCO Weltdekade der kulturellen Entwicklung." Stamm 10:12-14.

"Religion in Contemporary East African Art." Journal of Religion in Africa 24 (4):376-88.

Schwarze Kunst, ed. Hamdi el Attar. Kassel: Projektgruppe Stoffwechsel.

1995

"Clan oder Witwe: wer begrabt S.M. Otieno? Interethnische Heiratskonflikte an einem Beispiel aus Kenya." In Fremde: die Herausforderung des Anderesn, ed. Mona Birgit Suhrbier, pp. 165-87. Roter Faden zur Ausstellung 20. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

1997

"Les armes africaines dans la collection Barbier-Mueller." Art tribal, pp. 63-7.

"Twins Seven Seven: The Lost Mask of Africa." Interview with Johanna Agthe and Christina Mundt. Exhibition pamphlet. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum fur Volkerkunde.

1998

"Zeitgenossische afrikanische Kunst im Museum fur Volkerkunde und in dessen Galerie 37 in Frankfurt a.M. Internationales." Afrikaforum 34 (3):277-80.

1999

Tagewerke: Bilder zur Arbeit in Afrika. Galerie 37 5. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum der Weltkulturen.

2001

Bilder aus Traumen: Jak Katarikawe, Uganda. With Elsbeth Joyce Court. Galerie 37, vol. 9. Frankfurt a.M.: Museum der Weltkulturen.

2002

"Dialogue: Museums and Contemporary African Art--Museum der Weltkulturen, Frankfurt." African Arts 35 (4):88-9.