ARLIS/NA 30^th / VRA 20^th Joint Conference, Hyatt Regency, Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri - March 20-26, 2002

Seminar 3

Cataloging Outside the Canon: African Art Cataloging

Moderators:

Eileen Fry, Indiana University
Marcia Stein, Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Speakers:

Margaret Ford, Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Carole Pawloski, Eastern Michigan University

Most visual resources collections are expanding beyond the traditional Western, Greco-Roman, Christian iconography-based approach to the arts. Since most curators are trained in Western art history, sessions dealing with non-Western images have become a much-anticipated part of the annual VRA conference. The 2002 ARLIS/VRA joint session on cataloging African art follows those from previous conferences that dealt with Japanese art, Islamic art, and Native American art (ARLIS).

Marcia Stein introduced the topic of African art cataloging and the need for interpreting purpose or ritual significance of the object, something that is not usually necessary when dealing with Western art.

Eileen Fry then acted as the moderator of the session and introduced the two main participants, Carole Pawloski and Margaret Ford.

Margaret discussed subject terms and reference sources. She suggested using Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, especially the scope notes. She noted the need to include culture, geographic area, materials, function, and date range in African image cataloging. Bibliographies by Janet L. Stanley were among the reference sources she particularly likes.

Carole, in addition to being a visual resources curator, also teaches African art. She spoke with the authority of a subject specialist while discussing the inherent problems one must come to terms with when dealing with cataloging in this area. She classifies her six thousand African slides by country, since she feels that the prolific ethnonyms (ethnic groups) are unfamiliar to most users as well as having inconsistent spellings and multiple subgroups. Also, there is the purely practical problem of the difficulty in changing a well-established system. She uses History of Art in Africa as a text (see below for citation) and noted her preference for using reputable museums and scholars as sources.

Major problems are:

• Unclear media: certain intrinsic arts are difficult to place within traditional categories, e.g., body art, headdresses, beads, gourds, performances and masks; numerous cross references are needed to make these images accessible.
• Dates, or lack thereof: how does one integrate images from early groups, e.g., Nok or Benin, with later groups; or the few dated objects with the vast majority of undated objects?
• Country name changes: the current Democratic Republic of Congo was recently known as Zaire, and before that as the Belgian Congo; should one change all of the slide labels each time a country changes its name?
• What is included in “Africa”: should Egypt and North Africa be included?
• Should the arts of the African Diaspora be kept with the country where they were created or with their original country of heritage?
• Contemporary artists: are they international, traditional artists, or tourist trade artisans? Should international artists be kept with their cultural group? Where should Shona works (traditional objects created for display, not ritual) be categorized?
• Western influenced arts: should sixteenth-century Afro-Portuguese ivories be placed in a special category?

Carol ended her talk by noting that with the development of digital databases and shared data, it is essential for the Visual Resources and ARLIS communities to come to agreement on standardizing approaches to African art and the problems noted above.

After a short break, Eileen led one of her usual thought-provoking discussions covering many of the issues raised by Carole and adding even more. Since we no longer deal only with analog labeling, we need to decide how to fit problematic African images into Core-type categories. Since parts of the VRA Core are not applicable to these images, the discussion centered on how we might handle information for certain images to make them compatible.

Eileen chose as a “poster child” an image of Felipe Garcia Villamil, Olubata Ayan (chief of the bata drum of Ayan), posing with the iya bata (mother drum) of the consecrated set of bata drums entitled Ayan Bi Oyo, taken in the Bronx, New York, 1994. Mr. Villamil is a Cuban trained in the Yoruba tradition. The problems inherent in describing/classifying/decoding this image were discussed. The image was referred to periodically as we progressed through a series of issues related to African art.

·         Issue 1: Work type. Three examples of problematic images were given.

o        People photographs, which in other contexts might be placed in a Cultural category, may be important within the African context for hairstyles, regalia, body art, costume, or ornament.

o        Process images (textiles, ceramics, blacksmithing) indicate that the creation of art is a part of life in Africa.

o        Africa in Motion is a category of more importance than in any other culture. Within it are images of dances, rituals, masquerades, processions, and musicians.

o        Documentary photographs could be placed in Field Photography, History, Scenery, or under Travelogue. Historic documentary photographs often have layers of meaning; e.g., a photo of the Benin punitive expedition (History of Art in Africa, illus. xvii) is also important as photography.

·         Issue 2: Creator. Carole’s discussion of this issue was continued. It was suggested that referring to ethnic affinity for contemporary artists who work outside of tradition-based work would be more appropriate than to keep them within “Africa,” essentially isolating them.

·         Issue 3: Culture – Ethnonyms, Toponyms, Cultures and Groups. Margaret’s source suggestions of the AAT and Ethnonyms were determined to be the two best sources for visual resources curators. Both should be consulted since each can have slightly different information; e.g., the AAT lists one Yaka culture, whereas Ethnonyms lists three Yaka peoples, differentiated by language and country. It was suggested that one should keep notes of any changes or choices within the texts of one’s sources. A discussion regarding the political correctness/scholarly fashion of using “people” or “peoples,” e.g., Yaka People, ensued. It was noted that the Metropolitan Museum and the National Museum of African Art both append “peoples” to cultural groups. The issue of when it becomes mandatory to do a global correction of one’s slide labels came up again.

·         Issue 4: Title. The difficulty of sorting out a “title” from descriptive information that could include function, medium, and iconography was discussed.

Time ran out before the issues of how to express cultural identities with the VRA Core, use geographic terms as stylistic designators, and handle tourist art and fakes could be addressed. Solutions to the many issues and problems raised in this intense session will need to be addressed at a future session.

Suggested Sources:

The Baobab Project, Sources and Studies in African Visual Culture, Harvard University

<http://web-dubois.fas.harvard.edu/DuBois/Baobab/>

Contemporary African Artist Database, Cornell University

<http://rmc2.library.cornell.edu/ContemporaryAfricanArt/default.htm>

Smithsonian, National Museum of African Art, Museum Resources

<http://www.nmafa.si.edu/resource/musresrc.htm>

• Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives
  <http://www.siris.si.edu/>
  under Archives: Search

African/Diaspora and Arts in Global Societies, Univ. of Arizona

<http://www.library.arizona.edu/users/juarezm/African%20Art.html>

Course page and list of related websites

Modern African Art: A Basic Reading List, A Work-in-Progress by Janet L. Stanley

<http://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/ModernAfricanArt/modern-african-art.htm>

Stanley, Janet, compiler. The arts of Africa : an annotated bibliography. Atlanta, Ga.: African Studies Association, v. 1. 1986 and 1987 -- v. 2. 1988 (with omissions from 1986 and 1987) -- v. 3. 1989 (with omissions from 1986 to 1988) -- v. 4. 1990 (with omissions from 1986 to 1989).

Notes: Bibliography derives from the monthly library acquisition lists issued by the National Museum of African Art Branch Library, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Stanley, Janet. African art : a bibliographic guide. Smithsonian Institution Libraries research guide ; no. 4. New York : Africana Pub. Co., 1985.

Biebuyck, Daniel P., Susan Kelliher, and Linda McRae. African ethnonyms : index to art-producing peoples of Africa. New York : G.K. Hall, 1996.

Visonà, Monica Blackmun ... [et al.] A history of art in Africa. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.