El sy : an artist´s vison and practice

              m
as we havo oxperienced until iiow. Once
this limifation has bocn overromo the
alliance betwoon rulture and nature is
unavüidable ¡n this rultural re-localion
tliat we are eijibarked on.
In any case the cultural pernieabilily,
and the stimuliis of ñisions and
interbreedings that African culture has
produced in the Caribbean could be
extended even further to other exslaverv
active áreas, inainly Brasil and L nited
States, where African niinorities have
inaiiaged to transinit up to the present
cultural and religious eleinents of
enormous coinple.xity and development,
through inusic, and the arts. principally.
Yet we must inake it clear that in manv
respects África is still an iniknown
])ropositi()ii. a invsterv on its wav to
extinction. diie to a process of
synchretism. (as García Ysabal points
out). without anvone liaving ever
discovered its scí'rets.
The Kuropean and Arab human iJebt
wilh África is from this perspective
irniTiense. though the chances of future
investigations are inversely proporfional
to the pillage coinrnitted. Togelher with
the devastating action of cliniate and
pests, the historical sources are scarce.
the docurnents written in African
languages as exceptional as thev are
precious, and there is a further
coinplication: official considerations
account for sonie six-hundred languages
and dialects. while in realitv there are
around six tliousatid.
This exhibitioii. because of its title
and the elements that conipose it is not
product of a new pitase of normalization.
beyond racism and apartheid. To the
contrary. it niakes such a process
invisible, it is part of the habitual state of
things in an artistic ambience.
"Another (^ountrv ' onlv stands up to
the analysis of the other.
In another coiintrv the itnplants, the
absences, the exclusions. the abdications,
the (usions and interbreedings of those
who resist arise. No journey exists
without the other, and no history. The
other is outside the journey and oiitside
history. There are múltiple aspe(-ts.
singularities. diversity. Yet is there really
such an other? Havent we all
kidnapped him?
A MAN, A MOON, A FRUIT,
A SMILE, A TEAR-*
ELSY:
AN ARTIST'S
VISION
AND PRACTICE
BY CLÉMENTINE DELISS
<>-
For ten vears. between the late 1970s
and 8()s. the Senegalese artist El Sy
painted with his feel. entering into the
economv of the coiTiposition with his
bodv and kicking out the ideáis of
negritude once proposed bv President
Senghor as a foimdation for art and
independence in Senegal. He inverted
the fraine, turning the work inside out
and revolting against the hegemony of
the Senegalese state which sought to
créate an art infrastructure unparalleled
in África at the time [1], The imprints of
his feet. which appcar like tracks in the
lar-stained blacks and murky whites of
the canvas. place the artist in the
position of witness and actor of a drama.
El Sv's drama is about repositioning
the body into the heart of paintiiig and
sculpture. Essentially a visual artist. El
Sy has worked in experimental theatre
for over twenty years [2]. The
performances he created with critic and
artist Isaa Samb, alias Joe Ouakam. in
the space of the Laboratoire Agit-Art in
Dakar sought to combine the practice of
painting with a theatre of action and
gesture. an alternative to the literary
emphasis proposed by Léopold Sedar
Senghor for whoni poetrv was ultimatelv
the soul of painting.
On the open stage of the
Laboratoire, objects rather than words
become operational within a temporary
setting and actors take their cue from
cloth mannequins, wire sculptures.
paintings and banners hung on trees.
This 'theatre without the verb' suggests
a realism rooted in tnediatic action, a
masquerade of on-going recuperation
which, in 1974 when the Laboratoire
Agit-art was fomied. was still closely
tied to the role of the artist as nation-builder.
For El Sy. his early theatre
work was an example of the on-going
use of his bodv as a prop. clothing
himself with his art and creating signáis
of visual understanding from his most
immediate environment. El Sv's work as
an artist is about mediating the visual
recollection of memories stored in his
person through actions in paint, shape
and gesture without recourse to the
intervention of language. He believes
that with the growing inovement of
people across borders. language barriers
will dissolve and a proliferation of
modes of expression which are visual
and gestural will help articúlate zones of
contact between individuáis and
cultures.
The most poigiiant and literal
extensión of this idea is a piece he made
in early 1991 called the Stretcher from
Gorée. .4 significant object, it is made
from the onlv human stretcher available
on the ex-slave island of Gorée with
which pregnant women were carried to
the ferry and hospital on the mainland
of Dakar during tfiis centurv. El Sv
found it in a rubbish tip on the island
whilst visiting the painter Soulevmane
Keita. Intrigiied bv its fortn and the
weight of its associations, he took it with
him, cleaned it and stretched a new
cloth over it. inuch to the horror of his
friend.
The Stretcher from Gorée has two
alternative shapes depending on how it
is opened up: one a tripod-like sculpture
of wooden legs and rice sacking. the
other a painted stretcher no more than
eighteen inches wide and the length of
an average man. Folded out, the sacking
reveáis a composition of bines, whites
and pastéis with a distincl design.
almost art noveau in its curved lines and
use of contrasting orange and black.
This highlv decorative element has been
a characteristic idiom in Senegalese
painting since the late 19,50s which F^l
Sv enlárges through the association with
the stretcher's human bearing. The
coarse material of the rice sack which
covers it is strong enough to carrv the
weight of a person and signifies
nourishmenl, the home environment. a
cyt'le of exchange and the regeneration
of art as well as life. Here El Sv
interpellates his most immediate
environment in Dakar, to then cast out
both its iTiemorable as well as its
rnundane valúes into a wider field. His
work süf'tens the pace oí global
consuniptiotí by coiislantly testing the
ability of a visual language to transfer
its sets of references oiitü different
siipport slnictures. Mis iriterest as ari
artist lies in the sculptural and spiritual
body. weight and fextiires evokcd by
these everyday objects rather than their
functional references to life in Senegal.
For this process to remain fertile. El
Sy enacts, through bis person, the saine
stylisation of space as he gives to the
figures and syinbols he paints. He
translates bis immediate reactions to
everyday life through a iiuinanising
aichemical process which is painting,
experiencing this process first through
inovement and social interactions before
he shapes it back into a form or an
object. In Dakar, a city rich with slrong
artistic personalities, El Sv achieves
invisibility by disgnising his appearance
from day to day. never the same person,
never the same expression or stvle. ibis
to and fro from his person lo his
painting is what gives the question of
stylisation in bis art sucb inediatic and
draniatised power. El Sv. a person of
intense moods. is like the recurring, yet
unpredictable pattenis created bv
currents of water or air. He nioves closer
onlv to reacl against what he touches
and throw a new set of perce[)tual
conditions into plav [3]. Sirnilarlv his
work responds to itself at regular
intervals, often through the perpetuation
of a language of signs and svinbols
which rebound off one anotlier when
viewed together.
His studio lies in an oíd part of
Dakar, a district called Niaves Thioker
caught in between the clegant sea front
of the Corniche and the busy street stalls
of Sandaga market. It is a part of central
Dakar which does not belong to
Eebanese traders but where Senegalese
fainilies live and run small businesses.
His studio is above a tailor's. From time
to time, a young boy knocks at the door,
an apprentice bringing a pile of sacks or
the latest virgin cativas: three narrow
panels of kite silk with loops fastened at
either end to ('arry wooden poles. The
dot)r closes and in the calm El Sv
continiies painting, this time on the
floor. The wall is coverod with denselv
lavered edges of paint, points of contact
between the jute sacking and brush
strokes. A bettered radio-cassette
recorder soiinds oiit Aiigustus Pablo and
the Inner (¡itv Griots.
The studio is not large but gives an
extraordinarv sense of space which El Sv
manages verv carefullv. To show his
work, he collapses the scale of walls.
testing notions of distance and división
between individual pieees. He places rice
sack painting on the floor, hangs them
off the wall, lavers oil paintings over
their coloured surfaces and thereby
dispells the standard border of white
neutralitv arouiid a discrete work. A
group of trapped objects' inade of
bloc'ks of wood c:aught in sacking. draw
the wall hangings out into the open
space of the room, extending volnine.
colour and line. It is at moments like
these that his paintings and sculptures
becoine operative and part of a
conscious niove to decenter our visión of
art. His body is never far away sucb that
to photograph them is to frame not onlv
a juxtaposition of different works but
the figure of El Sy as parí of the act.
This is inore than installatioii: it does
not replv predominantly on the frame in
which the work is showii but on the
object itself becoming an extensión of
the persoiTs own space.
The material su|)port for this dual
stylisation of person and work is in itself
a transforming commodity. Senegalese
households are familiar with the jute
sacks which carry the rice into their
kitchens. No sooner eniptv tbey are
collected bv one of the many roving
traders. El Sy buys the bags, takes them
apart at the seams and stitches them bv
hand into whichever forniat he wishes to
paint 011. I sing a |)lastic ketlle he first
drips water onto the jule. moistening the
thread and merging the j)anels of
sacking. He (íaints with sweeping strokes
usiiig pastel or earthy-coloured acrvlics
and tar in a gestural language of circles.
loops and chains com[)elling you to
follow his line with your hand. Dancing
with grace, his paintings hover between
iiguralion: femiiiine signs of mythical
queens. the atjuatic world of sea
creatures and plants, and the dissohition
of these morphologies into einblems,
curves and traces of colour. Manv of the
works he has made over the last twelve
vears contain recurring coded signs sucb
as the looped square, hooked stick.
traj)ezp and oval. Althougli Islainic
svmbols and influences from Dogon
svmbology could be read into these. the
visual language in El Sys work has a
consistencv of its own.
His scale as a painter finds its soiirce
in his work as a muralist which he has
practised for over twenty years. His
painting is aboiit gesture over a wide
plañe, a wall rather than a stage. yet
with a similar approach to vohime and
movement. Each stroke of colour has
transpareni'y withiii it allowing for a
lavering of line. tone and depth of field.
The rice sack. a material which carries
the texture of paint without difficulty,
alternatively becoines the basis for a
cativas, a tapestry and a tlieatrical
backdrop.
The association of these paintings
with ta|)estries is not incidental. When in
1966. Presiden! Senghor of Senegal set
up the Manufacture Nationale de
Tapisserie'. a tapestry production based
on the Freiich Gobelin inethod in the
town of Tbics fortv miles outside Dakar,
he created alongside it a (^oinniittee to
select designs bv artists which. once
woven. could be displaved in state
buildiiigs. Sengbor's respect for art and
culture as a foundation stone within
State |)()litics came from his personal
commilment and passion. However. with
the increasing instilutionalisation of
negritiide artists were in danger ol
becoming court lap-dogs. jilaying to the
needs and vanities of the government.
Allhough the Tines tapestry centre
continúes to exist, and one can still
(lurcbase select designs. all produced in
liniited editions of eight at the jirice of
37.'5,()()0 ( TA per square meter
( t 4500), the legacy of this geiire of
woven painting continúes to aífect the
second generation of artists in Senegal.
El Sv. whilst demonstrating respect
and admiration for Senghor whoin he
knows personally. has always refused
the easy option of state [latronage. He
has no pretentions for bis paintings to be
woven at Tbies, a coniissioii once
svnonymous with artistic knighthood.
The rice sack could not be a more
appropiate mediun with which to
siibvert and surpass the tapestry with all
its connotations of art, class. colonialism
and state politics. The forinat of the
stitched panels which hang from a pole
M
and tlie cinphasis on staged composition
refcr back to tlie lapestry whilst
iiitroducing a novel texture: tlie rice sat'k
iVüiii Malavsia or África, a shiftins
container of nourishnienl which once
enipty returns inlo the home to leed the
eye as art. The tnaterialilv of El Sys
work is rooted iii essential ingredients of
the culture and survival of Senegalese
people. Whether iiung in a niodest hoine
or from the walls of an inlernational
museuní, this work sncceeds in evoking
llie sensibilities of generations and
returiiing the creative curve of art back
^ to África.
L The question of whether and how fiis
Á work relates to traditional art in Senegal
" is answered througfi the verv nature of
the earlier exprcssions. Hphetneral
^ constructions made of basketr\% straw,
A wood and cloth. the art of Senegalese
M peoples. especiallv those who have led
iioniadic existences crossing into Malí
n and the Cambia (Wolof, Peul,
^ Toucouleur, Bambara...), can be widelv
'' seen as an art of inovement, a
a niasqnerade of the eve and the soul
. which the artist ernbodies in person or
o through objects in order to resolve. The
a activities of the Laboraloire Agit-Art in
Dakar, in particular the theatre
[performances which El Sy created with
artist and critic Issa Samb in the eighties
and wfíich sprung from painted rather
than written scenarios acceiituate the
notion of a coUectivitv of actors with a
transforinational, ahnost spiritual role.
In ihe hands of ihe aesthetic
cosmographer or marabout. the human
body. material object, painting or
carving bccome [)art of a theatre t)f
interaction. Although the momeiit of
communication and empowennent is
operational only for a temporary
moment, the tactility and texture of the
performance is intense.
Issa Samb recognises the earlier
social role assumed by the artist in the
post-lndependence period of the 1960s
and 70s in West África. 'Today', he
suggesls. the issue is no longcr that of
the political position of the artist in the
urbaii environmeiU of the tiew nation-state,
bul revolves instead around
making work and the discussion and
interpretation of it. There has been a
fear of relurning energy back to objects
in África and all experimentation in
creating new object relationships has
been diverled. .Vluseums have
emasculated the social power of objects
and whereas international investment in
African music is desired, the valué of the
material object is still muted' [4],
With this in mind. the Laboratoire
overflows with recuperated junk from
the city. rewired but never un-plugged
from the lile which one gave it a
rneaning. El Sv carries this enviromnent
bevond the art frame of the Laboratoire
into the labyrinth of streets and alley
wavs which surround his studio in
Dakar. He speaks of his own reality, his
life as well as his art, as both the tracing
of and the imprint of a landscape. "'La
réalité qui m'inléresse est celle qui nait
de la matérité, de la physicite des corps.
des matériaux que le toucher de
Taveugle pergoit et identifie. Je veux diré
-la réalité est une trace.une empreinte
réelle d'un pavsage" [5].The rice sack
paintings are earth-bound in their
materialitv and in the physicality of El
Sv s manipulation of tliem but the signs
and figures he paints otUo fhem are
clues of a inore volatile enviroimient.
Recently he has begun painting on
fibre-glass cloth used for making kites
and sails. The material is midway
between a tarpaulin and silk with a
weave that is neither textured ñor
moulded. It has a strange, synthetic
weight and catches the wind at everv
moment. El Sy treats it like paper-cloth
and lets the light break through the
painted surface. through dark, sombre
greens and browns and fluorescent
yellows and bines. The effect is
soinewhat reminiscent of painting
beliind glass or 'suwer'. a method which
reached Senegal in the late 1950s from
.\orth África and is now a popidar form
of tourist art. Although El Sy paints over
the front of the kite silk, the transluscent
effect is similar as the wind and light
shine throttgh the liquid membrane of
glass.
riie format of tíiese new works
resembles the patchwork of the rice
sacks and the kites he made re(;entlv for
a pop-promo of Youssou N'Dour.
Working witli Patrick Nassogne. the
producer of the video and an enthusiast
of kite-flving technology. El Sv created
five kites measnring approximately six
by two meters painted in golds, blties,
green and reds. Vi hilst Nassogne played
with balance and tweaked an elabórate
set of strings. El Sv watcfied and waited
to see if the pahitings would flv. As the
cowrie sheli and tótem drums rose into
the skv, he saw a new space for the
gaze, a 'mise en del of art. without
walls. spotlights. shinv floors or white
walls. Instead. the paintings appeared
against a depth of blue light and air.
shrinking as thev moved further awav,
visible onlv as far as the eye can see.
'L'Armoire', a sculptural painting
exhibited recently in the show 'Fiscales
Africaines at the Centro Atlántico de
Arte .Moderno in I^as Palmas [6].
(Ximbines both the free floating
insubstantial feel of the kites with the
grounded texture of sacking. 'IJ Armoire'
is an object which works between
textures and gravities. It is neither
solidlv constructed to give benefit to the
coarse weight of the jute which hangs
from it, ñor light enough to lift itself into
the air easilv. This rectangular open
cupboard made of wood poles and
painted sacking has taken iip the vohnne
of his studio in Dakar like a store within
a store. Installed recently as part of the
exhibition 'Fiscales Africaines it became
operative the moment one walked
through it. engaging the body of the
spectator with the body of the floating
painted franie. 'E'arnioire is the meniorv
of the passage. of the movement between
sea and the heavens. a strange container
of human experience, suspended in the
man-built space of a modern art gallerv.
Ihe .\1alian philosopher Amadou
Hampaté Ba, Iwrn of a marriage of
similar Toucouleur and F\ilanyi heritage
as El Sy, write about the memory of liis
people which he claiins was prestigious;
'C'est que la mémoire des gens de ina
génération et plus généralement des
peuples de traditions orales qui ne
pouvaient s'appuyer sur Pécrit, est d une
fidelité el d'une precisión presque
prodigieuses. Des renfance, noiis étions
entrainés a observer, á regarder, á
écüiUer, si bien que tout événement
s'inscrivait dans notre mémoire comme
dans une cire viérge. rout y était: le
décor, les personnages, les paroles,
jusqu á leurs costumes dans les moindres
détails. Quand je décris le costume du
[)reniier cortunandant de cercle que j ai
vu de prés dans inon enfance, par
exemple, je n ai pas besoin de me
"sonvenir'. je le vois sur une sorte
rl écran intérieur. et je n'ai plus qu á
décrire ce que je vois. Pour dccrire une
scéne je n'ai qu'á la revivre' [7].
El Sv s sensibilitv derives from his
personal experiencc of tlie nomadic
routes of art. the inovernents of people.
ideas and actions. both across countries
and cultural histories. Before he
travelled lo the LSA in the early 1980s,
he had covered fourteen African
countries, spending time in Mali and
Xiger where he shot over onc thousand
photographs. His work recaptures the
memory of a practice of spiritual
fervour, an ability to look, listen,
observe and mediate the aesthetics
which surround one. Whether working
from his studio in the rué Madeleine
Xgom in Dakar, or passing through
Johannesburg, El Sv never loses touch
with the environment which surrounds
hirn. He wears his life through the
textura of his painting. an artist's visión
of human contact and experience. In the
context of África, t^l SN'S work engages
as it shifts perceptions. offering
possibilities for a new dramaturgy of
artistic practise perforined, mise en
scéne bv artists, not as lonelv action but
as a celebration of the métissage of
people, practises and art codings.
[3]
Kl Sy iias a solo show at the Goodnian
Gallerv. ,lohanne.sburc;. l l t h P"('bruarv-4th
.Vlarch'lQ95.
* Léopold Sedar Senghor in 'N'egritudc: A
Hiimaiiisin of the Twentienth Ceiitury in
The African Reader: Independent África.
Vintage, Ramdom (lenturv, London.
1970. pp. 172-92.
[1] The institutions set up during the Senghor
period include, for pxaniple. the Maison
des Arts (1960), the Institut National des
Arts, the Manufacture des Arts Décoratifs
(1964). the Musée Dynamique (1966).
the Festival of .Negro Arts held in Dakar
in 1966. and the Salons of Senegaiese
Artists (197.'5). "The role of the .state as a
patrón of the artists since independenre
who has beslowed more than 25% of its
budget for ediication and culture shonid
not he forgotten . 1^. S. Senghor, Preface
to "Anthology of Contemporary Fine Arts
in Senegaf 1989 edited hy F. Axt and El
1 ladji Sy. Mnseuní fuer Voelkerkunde,
Frankfurt.
[2] F^l Sy worked with Seyba l^amine Traore
and tfie theatre group .Nouveau Toncan
[3]
[6]
on the plav Choix de Madior written by
Ibrahima Salí in 1972-73.
Amadou flainpaté Ba writes of the Peul
notion of personhood: 'La nolion de
personne est done, au départ. tres
complexe. Elle implique une multiplicité
intérieure, des plans dexistence
concentriques ou superposés (physiíjuea,
psychiijues et spirituels a differents
niveaux). ainsi qu une dynamique
constante. (...) k aucun moment. la
personne humaine n est done considerée
conniie une unité monolithique, liniitée á
son corps physique, mais bien comme un
etre complexe. habite par une multiciplité
en mouvement permanent. II ne s agit
done pas d un étre statique ou achevé'.
From A. Hampaté Ba, Notes sur la
notion de personne dans les traditions
peule et bambara in Aspec.ts de la
Civilisation Africaine 1972. Présence
,\fricaine. Paris pp. 11-13.
From a conversation with Issa Samb in
the Laboratoire. Dakar, 9/12/93.
tjl Sy in a personal communication to C.
Deli'ss in 10/4/94.
riie exhibition was Otro País. Escales
Africaines" curated by Simón Njami and
Joelle Bus(;a for the dentro Atlántico de
Arte Moderno, November 1994.
Amadou Hampaté Ba in Amkoullel.
lEnfant Peul-.Mémoires' 1991, p. 13.
- > ^ ( ^ ^ -
SECOND RATE
PERIPHERIES:
VIRTUES AND
CONTRADICTIONS
OF REGIONALISM
BY JONATHAN ALLEN
When the CAAM inaugurated that
magnificent exhibtion. "Surrealism
between the Oíd World and the New",
the ideology of tricontinentalilv
resounded triumphantly. .More than a
genuine body of thought or workable
intellectual creed il is a compilation and
synthesis of tenets borrowed from
Canarian-African and Canarian Latin
American studies that have behind them
two solid decades of academic
historv, seminars and hundreds of
specialised publications. To denv an
African connection in canarian fiistorv
woiild be foolish,for we have a de facto
geograhical relation with África,
although the relation that we do have
with this contirierU is paradoxically
unacceptable to puré tricontineiital
theon^ that presupposes the existence,
when not the active présence of cultural
interrelations. However. between us and
África, there has only been cominerce,
(al best), economic colonialism,
exploitation. and right at the beginniíig
of such a fertile story, brazen slavery.
The unpleasant truth is that our cultural
relation. past and presen!, with África,
has been feeble as creativity and
production go. We can only find certain
formalist borrowings from African art in
some of our local artists, and in certain
aesthctic movements such as
"indigenismo". Formalism, that is. and
hardlv ever real penetration in the
history and psyche of a countr\-. Lots of
vague promises of "cooperation'.
(culturally speaking), mutual interests
declared, art and craft and tourist fairs,
trade and more trade. África is hardly
anything more for us. and even less so in
the mind, as there aro no serious African
studies offered in (Janarian secondary
education, and Afican Studies
departments are suU "taking shape" in
both universities. Can someone picase
créate such a department once and for
all! Do picase have the necessary visión!
Such lack of forethought makes it
impossible for us to present the African
or África in Europe, though we claim,
vainly, that we are "'Africans". and that
our ancestors were ethnically related to
the Berber-lJbyan race, (This is no lie.
The guanches were dark-skinncd North-
Africans).
We confuse, dangerously,
geographical location with spiritual
brotherhood and cultural reality. The
simple geographical fact of being
"African" is used as a ticket to
participate in an African reality that is
non-European. I can never forget a
tragic. ironic circumstance that took
place when the exhibition "África
Today" was being put up, that glossy
collection of African art curated by
André .Magnin, which was
controversially received. In the waters of
the Puerto de la Luz appeared the
lifeless body of one Mohained Fofana, an
African nobody knew that had wantcd
to enter Canarias illegally. The facts
surrounding his death have iiot offictally