New directions in African Art(s).

Is a journal a destination, or is it a point of departure? Does it reflect a discipline, or does it shape it? Should a journal's editors select its contents in order to fashion a particular identity, or should the articles submitted to the editors determine their journal's--and thus, their field's--changing identity? And how are the subjects of an art journal's articles influenced by and implicated in the pressures of the art market?

For nearly forty years, African Arts has been synonymous with the study of African art. Since its inception, the journal has recorded the major events and movements in African art scholarship. It has been and continues to be a place where young scholars document fresh field research, seasoned scholars present ongoing research or new areas of inquiry, and scholars from other fields make contributions from illuminating cross-disciplinary perspectives. African Arts is the venue for all scholars and contributors to witness and make manifest the richness and variety of Africa's visual and expressive arts and the histories and transformations of these same arts. As a result, the journal serves as a primary teaching tool for courses on African art, visual culture, and related subjects, as well as an enduring resource for students, academics, museum curators, collectors, art dealers, and many others dedicated to Africa and its arts.

Throughout this long history, African Arts has had a self-reflexive component. First Words, as well as the Dialogue section and special issues, have been a regular way of evaluating the state of the field at specific points in time (see, for example, Ross 1992, Futa 1992, and Cosentino 1989). The purpose of the First Word, especially in recent years, has been to provide a forum for commentary on the field or some aspect of it, and to encourage very individual points of view. At critical moments in the journal's history, such as anniversaries; as part of reporting on Triennials, ASA, and CAA conferences; or in response to readers' surveys or momentous current events, there have been articles that looked back and/or looked forward.

Here, early in the twenty-first century, we find ourselves asking major questions once again about the field of African art, about the coherence of "Africa" as a term of identification, and about the varied nature of material and intangible forms of expression. One could argue that the field has always been at a turning point, as it has raced to keep up with the creative output of the continent. It does seem, however, that there are important intellectual issues begging for discussion at this particular moment in time. You are reading a special issue of African Arts on new and emerging scholarship in African art, guest-edited by Susan Vogel. Susan's work has been prescient over the years, often signaling ideas and approaches to come. The editors of African Arts feel that her special issue presents an opportunity to assess the vision and mission of the journal at this transitional point in the discipline's history, thus following in the venerable tradition of many earlier First Words.

First and most important, where is the study of African arts headed, and does the journal reflect and contribute to the new directions in which the discipline is moving? Secondly, will the directions the field is taking sustain the journal--in other words, will the subject matter of the journal appeal to its longstanding subscribers and advertisers while attracting new readers? Thirdly, given the growth of the discipline, can one journal cover all the bases, or will subfields such as traditional, modern and contemporary, and diasporic studies develop their own constituencies? The journals' editors have discussed these and other issues at great length, and some of the same topics are also addressed in the articles of this special issue.

So, where is the field going? The last several Triennial Symposiums on African Art, as well as recent exhibitions, publications, conferences, and commentaries by art critics, such as Holland Cotter of The New York Times, make abundantly clear that the field continues to burgeon. Indeed, scholars and students have moved into so many different arenas of inquiry and research that it is difficult to say "African art" anymore and know exactly what we mean by that phrase. In its earliest decades, African art studies were based upon a compelling series of ethnographic studies of the arts and architecture of ethnic groups across the expanse of the continent. Greatest attention was given to rural communities. The 1980s saw increased attention to previously marginalized subjects: arts of eastern and southern Africa, women's arts, ephemeral and body arts, issues of authorship, and performance. And since the 1990s, the field has expanded exponentially to include museological studies, urban and popular arts, transcolonial research, diasporic phenomena, electronic media, and interdisciplinary and theoretical approaches. Finally, and this has been the most conceptually complex shift, the field has come to include modern and contemporary art in significant ways.

Many African art scholars have incorporated contemporary arts and issues into their teaching and curating without hesitation. But for those who are wedded to so-called traditional art--as collectors of this material, dealers of it, or as scholars and curators with a sense of attachment to the past--there is a tendency to set up an all-too-rigid divide between the old and the new. The tendency on the part of some is to see precolonial and postcolonial arts as incompatible subjects and artistic phenomena. Recent expression is sometimes considered to be "decadent," regardless of aesthetic considerations, while earlier material is deemed better simply because it is old and rare, again regardless of aesthetic considerations. Likewise, many scholars and collectors who identify themselves with modern and contemporary spheres of artistic production distance themselves from the study and collection of traditional art, and vice versa. A pungent argument is made--often by African artists themselves--that contemporary art is contemporary art, whether or not it is made in Africa. To say the opposite is to ghettoize arts that happen to be created in Africa. But then others dismiss contemporary art produced by Africans as "derivative" when it is based upon non-African media and styles, and as insufficiently "African"--however romantically that may be defined. It is surely hard to win in such cross-cutting debates.

The deep fissures between traditional and contemporary arts of Africa have to do with matters of taste and value. Contemporary African art, while receiving considerable attention on the international art circuit, is not yet being acquired by many collectors of traditional African art. Furthermore, contemporary arts associated with Africa stubbornly refuse to fit under any one rubric, which has complicated its acquisition by museums. A debate continues as to whether this kind of art should be collected by African art departments or by contemporary art departments, and whether contemporary artists of African heritage wish to be exhibited in museums of non-Western arts or in international contemporary art museums.

Meanwhile, rising market values reflect traditional African art's growing acceptance in the narrow confines of the art world. But they also signal a lack of supply. As many collectors would testify, many African art objects are circulating from one collection to another and from one international art market to another rather than being "discovered" in Africa itself. There are exceptions, of course, such as the recent influx of material into American, European, and South African galleries from Zambia, most likely as the result of that country's difficult economic and political circumstances, the ravages of HIV/AIDS, increased interest in Evangelical Christianity, and other social factors that compel people to give up their heirlooms (if, indeed, that's how such objects can be considered). For these and other reasons still, it behooves collectors and scholars to look to new arenas of African artistic production, especially contemporary arts as they boldly make their way onto the international stage of artistic discourse and display. Yet most collectors remain nostalgic for the art of a romanticized African past.

Certainly, though, the dwindling supply of historical material is due to the fact that Africa has changed dramatically in the past quarter century. Some earlier modes of artistic expression are no longer relevant and have been forgotten or replaced. While many rural ceremonies involving the use of art are still practiced, most historical objects have been substituted with newer versions, as Susan Vogel demonstrated with vibrant examples in the Africa Explores exhibition and book (1991). The reason for this is either because the older ones were sold, or because it is normal to refurbish art forms periodically and to update them to meet the needs of the moment. For example, it is common these days for Gelede masks to depict airplanes or other scenes from the media or politics to demonstrate that the masquerade is always a commentary on current issues. But it is also true that many youth have left rural towns and villages for the cities and have adopted an urban lifestyle with the kinds of interests and preoccupations that go hand-in-hand with cosmopolitan existence. As a result, popular urban arts, such as barbershop advertising, sign painting, arts of recycling, paintings on public transportation, and mural arts have exploded onto the scene. Yet neither the newer versions of historic artistic forms nor the urban expressive arts that are flourishing at the moment seem to be of much interest to collectors, dealers, or museums that have valued traditional art first and foremost. Nor are they of particular interest to contemporary art specialists.

African Arts has reflected all of these surges and movements in recent years, in spite of disparities in taste, for these are the expressive realities of our moment. Vodou shrines, young British artists of African descent, and arts of hip-hop and rap are of as much or possibly more interest to young scholars seeking dissertation topics as more "traditional" art forms like masquerade, divination arts, and vernacular architecture were in the recent past. A few years ago, Fred Lamp bemoaned the fact that so few young scholars were conducting field research in rural Africa anymore and that the percentage of studies on traditional art decreased radically between 1989 and 1998 (1999:6, 8-10). He warned of the imminent loss of cultural knowledge if students cease to pursue the kind of focused, long-term, on-site research required for deep ethnographic and art historical observation of the use and production of objects. Lamp thoughtfully analyzed the many dynamics leading students away from such avenues of research.

Yet if students and scholars are gravitating towards new arenas of artistic inquiry, it is because those arenas are presenting themselves as dynamic and engaging. That is not to say that there are not young scholars still pursuing research on "traditional" topics, for there are, and there are some stellar projects recently completed or underway. Yet even those studies will undoubtedly produce new perspectives on traditional arts and practices because, as James Clifford has written, "'cultures' do not hold still for their portraits" (1986:10). African Arts does not draw a line between what is "art" and what is not, or what qualifies as "acceptable" visual culture, expressive media, or cultural heritage. Phenomena such as postage stamps and advertising signage are not ordinarily considered to be "art," yet they merit discussion and presentation, for they demonstrate the powerful role of visual culture in shaping social, political, and historical realities. To exclude such topics would contravene the very purpose of the journal, which is to be both a record and a stimulus for an Africa that is vibrant, dynamic, and always challenging rigid categorization.

Meanwhile, urban and popular arts, also subjects of this journal in recent years, have insignificant market value at this point in time. Yet these are areas of study that represent the fertile interstices of African artistic production and creativity. As young people move to the cities and excavate their new urban surroundings for ways to make a living, as recycling takes value from "System D"--the "D" standing for debrouillage in the informal economy, where devious solutions and resourcefulness allow citizens to defy their circumstances--and as cityscapes offer themselves up as new stages for artistic expression, popular urban arts are thriving. African Arts offers its pages to these topics, to document the waves and the movements in late twentieth and early twenty-first century African visual and related expressive culture. These are vital signs that Africa is alive and well, that creativity does not cease with urbanization or even with civil strife or pandemic, and that modernity and artistic ingenuity go hand in hand.

Similarly, arts that reflect Islamic and Christian influence are virtually unmarketable (with the exception of Ethiopian liturgical arts) yet critically important artistic phenomena. A case in point: The kinds of material shown in the exhibition and accompanying book A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal (Roberts and Roberts 2003), such as glass paintings, calligraphic healing papers, and shop facade signage, are of little interest to most "serious" collectors, yet these arts document a culture that is blossoming with visual stimuli. An institution like the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History collects this and other, similar kinds of popular devotional material for its cultural significance, as documents of urban African landscapes at particular moments in time. Likewise, arts associated with HIV/AIDS awareness do not garner high prices on the art market, nor are they everyone's idea of a "collectible." Yet they are strong and powerful statements of the manner in which art can intervene and make a difference in a pandemic. South African women artists have adapted and reconfigured older artistic genres to give them purpose in the present and to make their artistic interventions critical and current (Allara et al. 2003; Roberts 2001). These are signal shifts in African artistic production and purpose; they enable us to see Africa as it is, not as a romantic fiction of an imagined past, nor of a market-driven art world that is divorced from local-level realities.

Rather than view these multiple modes of artistic production as obstacles to a coherent identity or as conflicting forms of expression, the editors of African Arts view them as part of the complexity and creativity of a pulsing, contemporary Africa that is wholly linked to its history. To conclude, then, the editors of African Arts see the journal's role as a destination where these and many other ideas can be delivered, unpacked, and consumed. At the same time, African Arts is a point of departure, stimulating new and engaging research and scholarship with all of these varied emphases and foci. Rather than restrict or preselect the content, we would rather present peer-reviewed articles of excellence and depth of thought that portray the vigor and vitality of Africa present, past, and future. With the brilliant assistance of our new executive editor Leslie Jones and the lingering inspiration of her predecessor, Amy Futa, we seek to present a journal of many parts, many contrasts, and enough jarring juxtapositions to keep us all alert to the creativity of the continent. Our hope is that our subscribers will celebrate all of these topics and themes as part of the richness of our collective and constantly unfolding field of multiple Africas with myriad arts and cultures. The varied kinds of submissions that the journal has received in recent years, and what readers will see in forthcoming issues, underscore that "African art" is a limited rubric for a universe spilling over with potential, like Ogun unleashed. Unwilling to restrict itself to any single identity or genre, the journal, like Africa itself, is inclusive of that which possesses the possibility to educate, empower or transform.

Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts

Allara, Pamela, Marilyn Martin, and Zola Mtshiza. 2003. Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Office of Publications.

Clifford, James and George Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

Cosentino, Donald J. 1989. "First Word." African Arts 23 (1):1, 3, 6, 8, 10.

Futa, Amy E. 1992. "First Word." African Arts 25 (4):1, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14.

Lamp, Frederick. 1999. "First Word: Africa Centered." African Arts 32 (1):1, 4, 6, 8-10.

Roberts, Allen F. 2001. "Break the Silence: Art and HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal." African Arts 34 (1):36-49, 93-5.

Roberts, Allen F., and Mary Nooter Roberts. 2003. A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Ross, Doran H. 1992. "First Word: African Arts Silver Anniversary." African Arts 25 (1):1, 6.

Vogel, Susan M. 1991. Africa Explores: Twentieth-Century African Art. Munich: Prestel for the Center for African Art, New York.