Modern African Artists Their Struggle for Tradition and Self essays

Modern African Artists Their Struggle for Tradition and Self essays How does an artist work out of and from a tradition that has colonized his or her people' By colonizing one's people, one also colonizes the art of one's people. Indeed, through the act of colonization itself, a nation such as Britain has deemed an African's very self hood, very person not to be part of the artistic production of tradition, but merely an object of exploitation. African artists almost as a whole must grapple with the fact that their nation has been oppressed and colonized by Western forces, yet many of these artists also wish to draw upon the rich artistic resources of Moreover, these African artists do not wish to merely recopy and recapitulate old, African forms of art, nor could they, anymore than they could recopy and recapitulate aspects of African tribal art within their own social experience. Such African artists currently live in a world of modern commerce that valorizes the individual artistic experience, as opposed to the communal and tribal tradition that produced most traditional works of African art. They must appropriate both the West and their African pasts anew, to create works that are creative in their syncretism, and representative of both traditionsnot an easy task. African artists cannot entirely embrace the West, nor can they entirely reject it if they wish to move forward in their own nation's art, in their own self-expression as an artist in and individualistic and Western-influenced world, and also to profit personally as all artists must on some level. Rather than attempt to reconfigure their own traditions, many African artists have approached Western art and culture in a spirit of parody and satire, familiar tools of the oppressed to communicate their displeasure with humor. Also, African artists whom are betwixt and between cultures, located both in colonial nations and in cultural communities that ...