When the Spirit is Dead

SPIRIT David Hecht [ Ce r t a i n ar t occupi e s an int e r cult ur al space. . . w i t h] a doubl e codi ng, w hi ch br i ngs it alw ays t he t hr e at of co- opt i on or m i s- appr opr i at i on, ye t also t he pot e nt ial t o quicke n t he pr oce ss by w hi ch t he r e pr e sse d u n de r gr ou n d i m age s of popul ar cult ur e ar e r e st or e d t o t he pr e se nt and di st ur b t he peace. . . and d e c o m p o se [ t he ] polit ics of con f o r m i sm and r e de m p t i on w hi ch ae st he t iciz e s differ ence and ne ut r aliz e s m e m o r y . It ope ns up t he possibilit y f or a r adical fait h in t he vit alit y of m y t h ol ogy as t he t e x t of popul ar cult ur e and m a gi c as it s t e chni que of e m p o w e r m e n t . Ch a r l e s Me r e w e t h e r ( Me r e w e t he r , 1 9 9 1 ) Ouattara has arrived in New York and proclaimed: "There is no difference between myself and a fetish priest." He comes to us from Cote d'lvoire via Paris, trained both in the sacred arts of the Senoufo and the secular arts of the Moderns.1 Ouattara's intercultural project is to realign art and spirit as objects of consciousness. Not just in the Spinozan sense but through a specific convergence of Western and African belief systems and through the methodologies of their articulation in the physical world. Of course it's also a matter of appearances: Modern art has sometimes looked African, so the idea was perhaps inevitable—if not problematic and problemed.2 1. T he Faust ian di l e m m a of ar t and r e li gi on—t o creat e or t o be creat ed, t o cont rol or t o su bm i t —a n d its implicat ion in t he polit ics of convert ing souls t o Christ ianit y, bodies t o slavery, and t he w or ld int o colonies. This essay is conce r ne d wit h t he di l e m m a as it cont inues t o pe r me at e t he polit ics of developm e nt in t he post colony and in at t e mpt s t o renegot iat e t he t yranny of universalisms. 2. 75 years after so-called "pr imit ive ar t " exploded Mode r ni sm, cont e mpor ar y Af r ican ar t r e mains a minor blimp in a most ly whit e int ernat ional ar t w or ld. An d t he Ar t wor ld r e mains lit t le change d de spit e a decade of mult icult ural at t e mpt s t o Journal of Contemporary African Art • Spring/Summer 1995 HIGH MODERN PRIMITIVISM Early 20th Century Western art looked more towards Africa and its other colonies for inspiration than to the late 19th Century art which preceded it. Like both ethnography and colonialism, art had the premise: "of converting overseas territories to the self and imagination of the West. (Mudimbe,1994,p.60)." Picasso and his company were fascinated with the spirits of their distant forefathers and tried to interpret them for the modern world.3 Back then, the African spirits were perhaps most palpable in the...