ASHÉ

Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expression

Paul Carter Harrison, Michael Harris, Pellom McDaniels III, Paul Carter Harrison, Michael D. Harris, Pellom McDaniels III

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000549300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Arte estadounidense

'ASHÉ: Ritual Poetics in African Diasporic Expressivity' is a collection of interdisciplinary essays contributed by international scholars and practitioners.

Having distinguished themselves across such disciplines as Anthropology, Art, Music, Literature, Dance, Philosophy, Religion, and Theology and conjoined to construct a defining approach to the study of Aesthetics throughout the African Diaspora with the Humanities at the core, this collection of essays will break new ground in the study of Black Aesthetics.

This book will be of great interest to scholars, practitioners, and students interested in tracing African heritage identities throughout the African Diaspora through close examination of a variety of discourses directly connected to expressive elements of cultural production and religious rituals.

Part IAshe’ Conceptual Frame

FRONTISPIECE: Wangechi Mutu, Riding Death in My Sleep

1Like Echoes Across the ContinuumWangechi Mutu’s New Horizons in Afro-Cosmology

Pellom McDaniels III

DOI: 10.4324/9781003046011-2

The extraordinary importance of the change is that it is willed, called for, demanded.¹

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963)

But in truth, the problem lay in the nature of the beast itself—in the nature of trying to marry a certain kind of terribly familiar at the same time estranging history.

Toni Morrison, “God’s Language” in The Source of Self-Regard (2019)

Wangechi Mutu is a diviner. Through her art practice and execution, unobstructed by the limitations of Western thinking and reasoning, she has provided us with visions of the ancestors dominating future-scapes. Her compositions unapologetically present Black womanhood as visible and powerful symbols of resilience, resistance, and freedom. The incorporation and adaptation of African rituals and traditions not only root but help to sustain Black women, their families, and their communities. Borrowing from art historian Tina M. Campt, Mutu’s body of work represents multilayered “gateways of passage, entry, and connection” between worlds of possibility and the worlds in-between.² In other words, her fantastical, magical, and illuminating images transmit, as well as transcend, ideas about blackness, Black womanhood, and the future in ways that are empowering, enlivening, and liberating for all.

Born in Nairobi, Kenya, the Brooklyn-based artist recognizes that her work is a

“shift in not using the black body ‘as a political gesture’ per se, but a movement towards using the black body for a variety of gestures not just pertaining to race or gender in the most obvious manner. I see myself,” Mutu argues, “using the body as a platform to reveal resilience and physical/mythical power of the female body, pointing out the interconnectedness of the human family.”³

Indeed, Mutu’s work not only explores the various ways in which Black women’s bodies have been exploited as sites of memory, manipulation, and abuse for God, country, and community within and outside the framework of capitalism; through her work, she strongly suggests that the common humanity of people can be connected through visual culture as counternarratives against assumptions about blackness as anything but dignified and honorable.

As an avant-garde artist of growing critical acclaim, Mutu has helped to resituate the Black female body in contemporary art as a cosmic force. Most importantly, at the center of Mutu’s increasingly complex and challenging art practice is an undeniable African sensibility grounded in myths deeply rooted in the continent and throughout the diaspora, its religious deities, and the all-encompassing concept of Ashe’: the tangible and intangible force and sacred power at the heart of African aesthetics. The art historian Robert Farris Thompson has written that in the Yoruba religion, Ashe’ is found in “various spirits under God” and these spirits are “messengers and embodiments of ashe’, spiritual command, [and] the power-to-make-things-happen.”⁴ Thompson’s observation speaks to the relevance of affective art production as one of the embodiments of Ashe’.

Indeed, the late curator and art historian Okwui Enwezor believed that there is an indispensable value and force within African and African diasporic visual arts and its ability to “upset the conventions of imaging that we have become very attracted to, and immune to at the same time.”⁵ Mutu’s collage work and installation processes bear witness to what Enwezor recognized as the necessity to disrupt the continuity of rote European and Western aesthetic practices, which in turn influenced spectator experiences and/or denied the cultural power of a work of art to resonate affectively. To paraphrase his position: there must be more to an image, to art in general, for it to have an impact on those who come into contact with it, especially the art made by Africans throughout the diaspora. Mutu’s work fits into Enwezor’s field of vision as exemplary of his philosophy not only because she is “committed—philosophically, culturally and ethnically—to Africa.”⁶ Through her work, she, in fact, actively explores the principals of Ashe’ and the worlds outside the perceived boundaries of art production and human experience. Using her cultural sensibility, acute vision, and faith in Black women as powerful sources of inspiration, Wangechi Mutu has lifted the veil between worlds and provided access to a view of cosmos from her position at the crossroads.

A Disruptive Force and Messenger of the Gods

In her monograph, Mirror Affect: Seeing Self, Observing Others in Contemporary Art (2016), art historian Christina Albu writes:

The central concept of this book is mirror affect, a term I have coined in order to explain the intense bodily experience triggered by reflective or responsive artworks, which encourage participants to take note of their collective physical presence as well as of their interpersonal perception and behavior. I contend that the more or less conscious attunements that emerge between participants’ acts contribute to an increased consciousness of contingent relations and the importance of agency in the context of systems in which absolute individual control and autonomy are unattainable.⁷

Within a Western context, images or representations of people of African descent generated to define blackness within pejorative terms have been created with the intent of maintaining social, political, and economic control over the majority of the population. Artwork created by Black artists with the intent of elevating and expanding the possibilities for Black people as a whole can have an impact on how spectators see themselves within society. Most importantly, the potential of positive or affirming images assists in determining how some choose to navigate within an intersection of contexts. Albu continues:

The affective connections established between spectators interacting with reflective and responsive artworks may be extremely ethereal and may not always contribute to a critical consideration of social norms or surveillance implications, but they hold a disruptive force that suspends individuals’ sense of self-sufficiency and open up new possibilities for interpersonal alliances.⁸

The ability of a work of art or an artist to be a “disruptive force” with the intent of breaking with social norms and empowering spectators to participate in a dialogue through their engagement with the work is monumental. What is more, the capacity of the visual arts to reach beyond eternity, thereby challenging perceived expectations and contingent identities, is also significant. This is exactly what Wangechi Mutu does in her practice. She lifts the veil between worlds and creates alliances between spectator-insiders—people of African descent, who gain a sense of clarity regarding their rootedness within the African cosmos. Mutu’s paintings reach well beyond the current moment and perceived boundaries as both utterance and gesture toward the past and the future simultaneously. For those spectator-insiders able to see, hear, and grasp what is presented in her work, the rooted traditions and rituals of Africa resonate loud and clear. Mutu consciously incorporates African myths, gods, and sacred deities into many of her works and installation pieces. This is especially true of her 2002 collage piece, Riding Death in My Sleep (Figure 1.1).

In this work, she presents more than a science fiction–based Afrofuturist concept or idea that some art critics and art writers have reduced to an image of a mutant or an “Existential Mash-up” of parts and discards.⁹ In this particular work, her “hybridized composition” gives us a central figure, whose face and shaved head, and bright red lips are in some ways out of sorts with the rest of her body and her surroundings. This appears to be gesture intended to put the spectator at ease by suggesting that the central figure is, in fact, a humanoid, however not of our time. Wearing raffia-wrapped calf-length boots and surrounded by colorful mushrooms, and an assortment of interesting creatures, she squats on her haunches and looks intently toward those choosing to come into her view.¹⁰ With her skin resembling a pallet of psychedelic colors and shapes, she fully extends her arms with her palms down toward the blue surface, as if balancing or bending down to get a good look at something. In this squatted position, she looks both curious and concerned. She might even be said to resemble a warrior poised to attack. Quite notably, most of the creatures in the collage are looking in the same direction as well. In effect, they are intentionally returning the gaze of all that comes into contact with the image.

Figure 1.1 Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). Riding Death in My Sleep, 2002. Ink and collage on paper, 60 × 44 in. (152.4 × 111.76 cm). Collection of Peter Norton, New York. © Wangechi Mutu.

Besides our central figure, there is an elephant-headed creature with wings and a serpent-like tail flying over our warrior’s head. Above it, in the left upper corner of the collage, there is a flying orchid-like creature with two tails. On the left shoulder of the central figure sits a hybrid between a cockroach and a lizard; and on the ground, at her feet, is a feline-reptilian-insect with butterfly wings. Interesting! The last creature of note is situated on the blue surface toward the bottom left in the frame. It has an eagle’s head and appears to have the feet of an ostrich. Out of all the creatures, this one is of particular interest based on the regal qualities eagles are said to possess.

In Igbo Arts: Community and Cosmos (1984), co-authors Herbert M. Cole and Chike C. Aniakor write:

Eagle symbolism crystallizes the inherent and accepted ambivalence of Igbo aesthetics and makes evident the need for a sophisticated understanding of both language and the context in which words, motifs, and colors are used. The two most revered “eagles” in Igboland, for instance, are innocent pretty girls and powerful titled men. The former are referred to a “eagles’ kola,” the latter, eagles that strengthen kinship.¹¹

In this particular image, the eagle may represent a pretty young girl, who has come under the protection of the central figure. Still, in Igbo culture, eagles are also revered as messengers of the gods and yet rulers of their domains. In this image, the central figure can be seen as the protector of the eagle, who has y...