Diversity Reading List

Abstract: In this chapter, I examine the role African art play in the institutionalization of difference in African traditions. I am particularly interested in how aesthetic signs and symbols or other forms of art are employed by persons of an African culture to differentiate themselves or set themselves apart from other persons within the same culture or other cultures. Such forms of art of interest here include modes of dressing, tribal marks, hairstyles, and nonverbal signs of communication. I assert in this chapter that these aesthetic forms of difference are in some way institutionalized into the fabric of culture that they are taken by members of the society as objective givens and often not subject to questioning. Hence the othering is sustained and maintained through time. I also argue that these forms of differences sustained through art often promote inequality and preferential treatment of the self over and above the other. A case in mind is the preferential treatment of female folks from the royal family as against those who are not from the royal family, a difference clearly made visible through art.

Content: This text focuses on identifying distinctive features of African art. First, African art is virtually always functional and although it can be enjoyed intrinsically, it is rarely created for its own sake. It is a part of the social and political structure and cannot be understood without an understanding of this structure. The function of such art is to ‘veil social functions’: communicate that there exist secrets available to those initiated without communicating those secrets to everyone. Wingo further focuses on masks and dance as examples of African art which are experienced in specific, culturally embedded ways. He offers detailed descriptions and a theoretical analysis of various artistic and cultural practices, showing the uniqueness of the experiences they afford and arguing that they cannot be experienced or understood without a prior immersion in the culture they are part of.

Content: Wingo contrasts the traditional Western approaches to art classification with some African traditions in which what gives art its status is the social context in which it is situated, the community that art creates. He reviews some of the ways in which art is approached in those cultures, focusing on its functional, everyday character and sensual nature. Art is not meant for disinterested intellectual contemplation, but for sense experience, and should have the capacity to really move its audience. Similarly, the forms of African art are often different, including mask and costume making and dance. Wingo offers an overview of ways in which such works can be embedded in other cultural practices, and discusses how they are commonly perceived and approached.