Traditionalism in Contemporary Art: Re-contextualizing African Ideographs through Hybrid Aesthetics

Abstract

Contemporary African art is multifaceted by virtue of proliferating art styles springing up across the continent. The most common feature of these diversified genres of modern African art is the phenomenon of appropriation, which involves hybridization of traditional African and western art cultures within modern practice. However, most modern African arts have been dubbed fake or prototypes of western modernism because of mimicking as a result of overarching appropriation of elements from African or western art. This study reviews recent artworks by Clement Akpang, which adopts the concept of ‘Hybrid Aesthetics’ as methodology to interrogate traditionalism in modern art. Following my experimentation of adapting African symbols and scripts into modern painting and sculpture, this paper investigates how traditional African visual culture is restaged in modern art-space to create artworks that not only bear cultural identity but possesses qualities that define contemporary art. From findings, I posit that ‘Hybrid Aesthetics’ ostensibly leads to the creation of authentic contemporary African art since it enables the re-invention of Africa’s rich visual culture in modern art utilizing contemporary techniques. Such hybridization generates a unique genre of African art capable of contemporary artistic existence and having a strong voice of originality in the global art scene. Works discussed herein expound the fact that, modern African artists can refer to cultural background including its visual realm, and produce new realities reflecting 21 st century artistic advance. Keywords: Hybrid Aesthetics, Traditionalism, Appropriation, Re-contextualization, Ideographs, Afrianism

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