dakart2012:

From the 1960s until today, Senegalese art has undergone a series of extreme shifts, both in its own physical style and in its relationship with the culture at large.

The two most dramatic shifts occurred in 1960 and 1980, marking the beginning and the end of Leopold Senghor’s presidency. 

Senghor was and is an important Senegalese-French poet and patron of the arts - his presidency during Senegal’s shift from French to independent governance enabled a rich and vibrant cultural and artistic tradition that has established Senegal as West Africa’s hub of artistic and cultural progress.

Senghor, in his own poetry, and in his policies and addresses to the state, promoted Negritude, a term coined by Aimé Cesaire, which encompassed a philosophy on art and literature that matched his political agendas towards the newly independent Senegal. Senghor’s main objective in all of these areas (artistic, cultural, political and economic) was “to take existing colonial structures and to graft onto them values more in line with the aspirations of a newly created African nation” (Ebong, 200). 

For Negritude art, this meant establishing a national art school that emphasized modernist European techniques in painting and tapestry making while encouraging students to follow themes more in line with their African heritage. Senghor was a huge supporter of Pablo Picasso, lauding him as an ambassador of African culture to Europe and saying:  “No artist could be more exemplary. He is a model for the school of Dakar” (Ebong, 200). He saw the artists of Senegal as similarly important and responsible. “Artworks under state ownership often functioned as instruments of diplomacy: art and artists were seen as ambassadors for the ideals of a modern progressive African State” (Ebong, 203). 

However, as much as culture and the arts flourished during this heavy sponsorship by the government under Leopold Senghor, the constraints of Negritude as the one and only artistic style supported institutionally created a culture of marginalism. Negritude art was limited to painting and tapestry-making; leaving sculpture, collage and media artists  to fend for themselves. Also, the “pan-African” subject matter implied by Negritude created a kind of monoculture to which many artists did not feel that they belonged.

Artists working around themes such as the disparity between pan-Africanism and actual independent cultures, political unrest, history, modernity and the dirtyness of the state itself, refused to limit themselves to the restrictions of Senghor’s Negritude. Rather than following modernist European tradition (which, in itself, was becoming a thing of the past by the late 20th century), they directly opposed the idea of permanence and prestige in art. The artists Issa Samb (Joe Oakam), Mustapha Dime, El Hadji Sy and others created a collective called the “Laboritoire AGIT-Art” - a collective that concerned “itself with the conceptual ideologies of the avant-garde rather than with modernist formulation” (Ebong, 206).

This group opposed a traditional view of art by creating a village of artists with a large pavilion at the center which served as a communal arts space. The contents of this space were always in flux - it became a stage for performance, a collection of trash and traditional objects, Senegalese flags and leftover debris. By combining objects such as traditional masks and the Senegalese flag with trash and debris, this group of artists initiated a dialogue that refused “to accept unquestioningly any identity based on an unmediated African past” (Ebong, 208).

When Senghor relinquished power to his successor, Abdou Diouf, in 1980, state patronage for the arts was dramatically reduced. Whereas Senghor had invested 25% of the country’s spending in culture and education, Diouf had little monetary or even cultural interest in the arts. A series of expulsions of artists and artistic institutions from government-owned locations emphasized the now hostile interactions between government figures and artistic ones - Negritude or no. Once the government stopped sponsoring Negritude, artists stopped producing it.

Continue following next week for more detail on contemporary artistic movements in Senegal, including instances of the “New Negritude,” ‘Authentic’ vs ‘Tourist’ Art, and the importance of bricolage and found object assemblage in contemporary African art.

-Emily Loughlin, 2012

Ima Ebong. Negritude: Between Mask and Flag. 1991