Yinka Shonibare MBE Study Day
Reading list
Session One
Technology, style, history.
Textiles are at least as ubiquitous an art as any other; and at times textiles and
dress have played a key role in definitions of ethnicity and nationality. In late
19th-century Lagos, for example, the question of what to wear had precisely these
significances and was vigorously debated among a middle-class intelligentsia
increasingly excluded from government by the colonial regime. Then, during the
late 20th century Yoruba women have turned to weaving when other professions,
such as school teaching have failed to provide them with work. As to the cloths
themselves, the distinctive patterning known in the Niger delta as ‘tortoise cloth'
ikakibite, is now proven as originating in the Yoruba-speaking part of Nigeria (the
earliest known example was collected in the 18th century and is in the Royal
Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh), and in turn to have set off developments
elsewhere among women weaving on the upright single-heddle loom. In contrast,
aso oke, ‘uphill cloth' (i.e. cloth of a kind inherited from the past; or coming from
inland; or having high status) is woven by Yoruba men on a narrow
double-heddle loom. Both ikakibite and aso oke appear to be flourishing; and
part of the reason for this has to do with the manner in which they continue to
function as participant elements in the history and constitution of ethnic and
national identities. Ewe weavers from Ghana have also left their trace, especially in
women's weaving but also, more recently (as Duncan Clarke has found), in aso
oke.
John Picton, 2004, What to Wear in West Africa: Textile Design, Dress and Self-
Representation, in Carol Tulloch [ed], Black Style, Victoria & Albert Museum,
London, 23-47.
John Picton et al, 1995, The Art of African Textiles: technology, tradition and lurex,
Barbican Art Gallery, London.
Doran H Ross et al, 1998, Wrapped in Pride, University of California Los Angeles,
esp ch 8, Asante cloth names and motifs, 107-125.
Picton J and J Mack, 1989 African textiles. British Museum Press, London
Perani J, 1999, Cloth, dress and art patronage in Africa. Oxford.
Lamb V, 1975 West African Weaving. London.
Aronson L, 1984, Women in the arts, in M J Hay & S Stichter, African Women, pp
119-137.
Aronson L, 1992, Ijebu Yoruba aso olona, African Arts, XXV, 3, pp 52-63
Clarke D, 1996, Creativity and the process of innovation in Yoruba aso oke
weaving, The Nigerian Field, 61, pp 90-103
Renne E, 1995, Cloth that does not die, Washington UP.
Perani J, 1992, The cloth connection: patrons and producers of Hausa and Nupe
strip weave, in Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, History,
Design and Craft
Lamb V & J Holmes, 1980, Nigerian Weaving
Supplement : dying and pattern
The concerns here are mostly with dyeing and printing: with Yoruba adire (and
the nature of its taken-for-granted "traditional" status), the developments known
in Nigeria as kampala , Asante adinkra , and Fante appliqued flags. These cloths
are among the local bases for the late 19th-century reception of exotic fabrics
based upon Indonesian wax batiks, and the rapid development of popular and
distinctive patterns that provided a means of maintaining local tradition,
proclaiming a modern identity and subverting colonial pretence. Since
Independence, their manufacture has been largely transfered to West Africa, with
just one factory left in England and one in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, their
gentle subversiveness is developed in the work of Yinka Shonibare.
Jackson G, 1971: The devolution of the Jubilee design, in J Barbour and D
Simmonds [eds], Adire Cloth in Nigeria, pp 83-93
Barbour J, 1970, Nigerian `Adire' cloths, Baessler-Archiv, vol xviii
Cole H & D Ross, 1977, The Arts of Ghana, pp 186-199
Picton J, 1995: Technology, tradition and lurex, in Barbican Art Gallery, The Art of
African Textiles: Technology, Tradition and Lurex and the other essays
Bickford K, 1994, The ABCs of cloth and politics in Côte d'Ivoire, Africa Today, 2nd
Quarter Domowitz S, 1992, Wearing proverbs: Anyi names for printed cloth,
African Arts, XXV, 3
Enwezor O, 1999, Tricking the mind, in Ikon Gallery, Yinka Shonibare: Dressing
Down pp 8-18
Session Two
Hassan S, 2000, The modernist experience in African art: visual expressions of the
self and other cross-cultural aesthetics, in O Oguibe & O Enwezor [eds], Reading
the Contemporary (Invaluable collection of papers, well worth having and all
worth reading: Appiah, Kasfir, Diawara, Koloane, Richards, both editors, etc)
Njami S, 2000, El Tiempo de Africa, see: Africa's Time, esp pp 261-277
Enwezor E (ed), 2000, The Short Century: independence and liberation movements
in Africa 1945-1994 esp intro pp 10-16
Subiros P, S Njami [et al ], 2001, Africas: the artist and the city, Barcelona
Hassan S M & O Oguibe et al, 2001, AuthenticlEx-centric: conceptualism in
contemporary African art, Venice Biennale, and Forum for African Art, Ithaca
Picton J, 1992: Desperately seeking Africa, New York 1991,Oxford Art Journal, 15,
2, pp 104-112
Picton J, 2000 In Vogue, or the flavour of the month: the new way to wear black,
in Oguibe & Enwezor Reading the Contemporary: pp 114-126
Ottenberg S, 1997, New Traditions from Nigeria: seven artists of the Nsukka
group, esp pp 1-47 & pp 125-153