Traditional African Art Technologies and Contemporary Art Practice

This study discusses the influences and relationship between traditional African Art, Modern and Contemporary Art, as from the Western perspective. It amplifies historical perspectives on the theatre of art making technologies, dissemination and consumption on the African continent in the past, which may have had some influence on Western contemporary art. Using material, documentary evidence and argumentative research methods, the study reveals that traditional African art and contemporary art often embrace and propose more egalitarian approaches in making and exhibiting art, however, their relationship has many times been obscured. More often than not, contemporary art is either presented as if it were new to Africa or was introduced to the continent later by the Western culture. The study posits that there are influences and close relationship between traditional African art and modern/contemporary art, in terms of liberalization of media, deskilling through the use of simple technologies and collective modes of production, and that the latter was partially and occasionally inspired by the former. It reaffirms the position that traditional African art technologies had always been integrated into communal life and reflected the technologies and societies of the time. Installations, reproductions, multi-form and cross genre art which propose a more inclusive agenda, also comprising publicness by way of production, experimentation, dissemination and experience as art reconfigures within given spaces, provide greater platforms for artists to re-examine traditional African art in relation to technologies for art today.