Elsbeth Court

Nelson's Ship in a Bottle Fourth Plinth Commission, Trafalgar Square, London May 24, 2010–January 31, 2012; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich permanent display from April 25, 2012

| african arts SUMMER 2014 VOL. 47, NO. 2 behalf of the National Maritime Museum to acquire Nelson’s Ship to mark its 75th anniversary (Fig. 1). In 2012, the Fund’s annual poll ranked the work the third most popular aft er Rachel Whiteread’s beautiful frieze Tree of Life (2012) on the façade of the Whitechapel Art Gallery and the Titian masterpiece Diana and Callisto (1556–1559). Such recognition heightened the stellar position that the artist has maintained throughout his remarkable career (Court 1993). Shonibare himself terms his Fourth Plinth experience to be a “game changer,”1 which was also observed by theorist and Serpentine Gallery co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist: “Th e experience of Trafalgar Square changed something profoundly for you” (2013a:17). Th at “something profound” is the crux of this review. Trafalgar Square (Fig. 3) was constructed during the mid nineteenth century to celebrate Britain’s pivotal victory over the Franco-Spanish fl eet at Capo Trafalgar (“west cape,” from the Arabic tarf-al-ghar). Th e Square comprises a large, open area of stone terraces with two large fountains and monumental sculptures that surround its centerpiece: the towering Nelson’s Column that commemorates the commander of the British fl eet who was killed during the 1805 battle. Th e nation’s greatest naval hero, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson was also an unconventional man with physical disabilities like Yinka Shonibare MBE.2 In the 1990s, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) embraced the challenge presented by the hitherto empty plinth in this grand square that felt out-of-step with the tremendous socioeconomic changes taking place in London and beyond. Contingent developments in the visual arts indicated that the notion of the heroic, masculine monument needed renegotiation to fi t with the postcolonial era. Accordingly, the RSA consulted widely and eventually agreed upon an audacious art project: a commission to create a temporary, postmodern monument. Th e author of Sculpture Now explains, “For each temporary creation, the artists have to re-think the function of the monument in this historic square ...” (Moszynska 2013:203). Aft er years of negotiation to “gain permission for contemporary art to occupy the empty plinth,” the RSA’s art specialists commissioned three sculptures that were exhibited sequentially from 1999 through 2001 (Crimmin 2012). 1 May 24, 2010, Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery: launch day for Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2009), winner of the Fourth Plinth Commission, the United Kingdom’s most prestigious sculpture award. Fiberglass, steel, resin, printed textile, linen rigging, acrylic, wood; 290 cm x 525 cm x 233 cm Photo: James O’Jenkins.

Kenyan Art Worlds

This issue of Critical Interventions is a snapshot of Kenyan art worlds fifty years after independence, in recognition of the important developments going on in this equally important East African country. Kenya occupies a very important location in the discourse of African art and more importantly, in the annals of human history as an early site of human evolution and also a crossroads of several important intercontinental developments dating back into deep time. The existence of Homo Ergaster (Turkana Man) dating to 3.5 million years, attests to this deep history as do the one million-year-old fossil hand axes which abound in the archaeological record. The Kenyan Rift valley, the site of these discoveries, is a premier site of ancient prehistoric hominid history, while rock art associated with the cultural complexes of the Great Lakes and Rift Valley pastoralists, dating back 4000 years, continues into the present. Historical evidence of important developments in this part of the world abounds. Valentine Mudimbe (1994, 17–18) notes that the first circumnavigation of Africa was not by the Portuguese; it was occasioned by Phoenician sailors working for an Egyptian king, and took place in the sixth century BC, according to Herodotus (on Necos’s periplus). It would surely have passed through the coast of modern Kenya as the sailors made their way up to the Red Sea en route back to Egypt. We have clearer evidence of maritime trade linking the Indian Ocean world to Kenya through the 45 A.D. Greek guidebook, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which describes journeys to what is now the Swahili Coast. The early 15th century Chinese treasure fleets led by Admiral Zheng He made stops in the Horn of Africa and predated Portuguese military and commercial presence on the coast from 1498 onwards. The complex history of East Africa is important because it subverts the usual narrative that sees the European presence in Africa as the primary indicator of Africa’s emergence into global history. Since current science clearly indicates that the human species developed in Africa (in fact, along the Rift Valley from South Africa to Ethiopia) and spread out to all parts of the earth from there, Africa’s centrality to global history is paramount and requires that we rethink the negative attitudes usually directed at the continent in contemporary discourses. Also, the colonization of this region by Britain from 1890 to its independence in 1963 can be slotted into a long history of important political and social changes and weighted accordingly. The complex changes wrought by British colonialism, aided by the Industrial Revolution, can then be seen as part of a larger history of global cultural interaction (power differences aside) that are not more important than 2000 years of Kenya’s participation in the Swahili Coast’s trade with the Indian Ocean worlds, or the millenia-long history of Islam in East Africa. This issue of Critical Interventions investigates aspects of modern and contemporary art in Kenya, fifty years after the country’s independence

Magdalene A. N. Odundo: Pathways to Path Maker

In this Critical Interventions special issue on Kenya Art Worlds, it is apposite to showcase within a historical framework the nation’s most acclaimed international artist, who, like the nation, is in her sixth decade. Magdalene Odundo’s life story raises points of comparison between artist and nation, the dynamics of “home and abroad,” and of memory and art. Indeed, her art generates intensive discussion about the object, first as exquisite vessels, then in relation to other objects and global contexts of contemporary art practice, and to their presentation including her installations, and even about their high market value. Magdalene Odundo’s imagination, talent, productivity, ambition, nationalism, and universalism are aspirational, and they are increasingly vital for the aspirations of her continental African viewers. Observers (Casely-Hayford, 2006; Cooper, 2001; Joris, 1994; Olding, 2015; Murray, 2004; Vaizey, 2001) have commented that her ceramic art seems to have emerged full-grown, self-evident, and modernist, and they are awed in the presence of her affective forms. Odundo has averred, “I think the work will speak for itself” and has proceeded to show slides of her favorite objects that she has absorbed into her own art making (symposium transcript, September 24, 1995; public talks, 1996, 2005). “I hope that in most cases the evidence is subtle and simply gestural” (Odundo, 2011, p. 106). Her preference for clay is material and conceptual—she can give it form specifically as vessels, and it can symbolize the deep time of humankind simultaneously with contemporary issues of identity (Kubler, 1962). Also, it is significant that Odundo works in series: a group of her vessels are like age-mates who together experience the ordeal of the kiln—not all of whom survive their transformation into ceramics. Indeed, firing her clay pieces is very stressful: “You can’t be in the kiln and control it. It is the part of the ceramic process when you gamble everything” (CaselyHayford, 2006, p. 14). This portfolio essay offers a purview of Magdalene Odundo’s practice with excerpts primarily from published essays by herself and by a range of scholars and curators. Most writing about her art is mid-Atlantic, associated with solo exhibitions in the United Kingdom and the United States. These generate excellent, synchronic essays that together have iterated a standard narrative for the artist, but most are weak in theoretical and contextual depth. The latter refers to the artist’s youth in Kenya before she came to England and to the marked increase in her professional activity in Africa, particularly in Kenya during the past decade, and her interactions with artists, art programs, and national institutions. Little attention has been paid to her actual and imagined regional “pathways” where she has worked for many

Annotated Chronology for the Emergence of Modern Art in Kenya

3.45 million years ago: Fossil records indicate existence of “Turkana man” (homo ergaster, a tall, upright proto-human). 1 million to 500,000 years ago: evidence of production of hand axes in the archaeological record. 4000 before present onward: rock art associated with the cultural complexes of the Great Lake agriculturists and Rift Valley pastoralists; in some instances, these practices continue into the contemporary era. 1st century A.D.: Evidence of maritime trade, including textiles, along the western rim of the Indian Ocean in the 45 A.D. Guide book the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in Greek, published. Early 1400s: Chinese exploration led by Admiral Zheng. He reaches the north coast, e.g., Pate Island of the Lamu archipelago; Lamu stone town is now a World Heritage Site. 1498–1698: Portuguese military and commercial presence at the coast; notable monument, Fort Jesus atMombasa is now aWorldHeritage Site. c. 1500: diversity and exchange in ethnic practices of art; continuing traditions Some forty ethnic communities representing four language families; largest groups are Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, Luo, Kalenjin (all over 2 million; 2010 Kenyan Population Census)