Locating Senghor's École de Dakar: International and Transnational Dimensions to Senegalese Modern Art, c. 1959–1980

Abstract

In September of 1960, Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001)—poet, philosopher, statesman, and cofounder of the loosely conceived Négritude movement in Paris beginning in the 1930s—became president of the newly independent Republic of Senegal. Over the next two decades, Senghor devoted considerable resources to the arts,1 including the creation of a government-supported cadre of modern visual artists known as the École de Dakar. To date, virtually all who have studied the state-funded École de Dakar, for reasons that are in many ways logical and compelling, have read its core fabric as quintessentially nationalist. This reading first became prevalent among critics who faulted Senghor for subordinating the École's production to what they saw as his Négritude philosophy-cum-nationalist ideology (Pataux 1974, Samb 1995 [1989], Ebong 1991).2 More recently it has been taken up by pioneering scholars who argue generally that École artists preserved their integrity even while relying on state patronage (Sylla 1998, 2006; Harney 1996, 2002, 2004; Grabski 2001, 2006, 2013).3 Yet the École de Dakar also stands to be explored for its international and transnational dimensions, which confirm art historian Elizabeth Harney's important observation that Senghor aimed to cultivate “supranational (i.e., pan-African and humanist) models of community” (2004: 50).4 Whereas nationalist readings suggest a decisive rupture with the French and a mandate to build Senegalese identity, I contend that cross-cultural collaboration and worldly participation lay at the core of Senghor's enterprise.In pursuing this argument, careful distinctions must be drawn between, on the one hand, notions of mid-twentieth-century territorial nationalism in Africa (aiming to transform colonies into independent nation-states), and on the other hand, two closely related terms: “international” (usually denoting interactions between states), and “transnational” (applying especially to phenomena existing across national borders and/or transcending allegiance to any one state). Readers familiar with Négritude but unfamiliar with the École de Dakar may not be surprised by a wider conceptualization of the École, given that Négritude is well known as a pan-African movement aimed at building broad solidarities.Nationalist readings have nevertheless been explicit in the existing literature and are on some levels persuasive. While curator Ima Ebong stressed that “Senegalese art … from its inception, was incorporated into a national agenda” (1991: 199), art historian Joanna Grabski stated more directly that “the visual propositions of the first generation of modernists responded to Senghor's call for a national art” (2006: 38). And in Harney's thesis, “Senegal's artists have engaged with the histories and practices of modernism and have participated in attempts to link a new aesthetic to the project of nation building” (2004: 4). These readings all feature Senghor using art to enhance post-independence Senegalese nationality—presumably by encouraging people who had long identified as Wolof or Serer or Haalpulaar to prioritize national belonging and by showcasing productions of Senegalese national culture to the rest of the world.5 Such readings are logical insofar as Senghor is well known to have retrofitted black nationalist Négritude with a Senegalese nationalist function in the 1960s (Markovitz 1969, Diouf 2003, Diaw 1993), and insofar as post colonial African nation-states faced a common challenge of forging cohesion among disparate cultural groups (cf. Askew 2002, Hess 2006, Straker 2009, Ivaska 2011, McGovern 2013).Yet in considering Négritude as a prelude to the École de Dakar, it is important to recall that Senghor's agenda always included cultivating an African presence within global modernity and what he called Civilisation de l'Universel (Civilization of the Universal) (Senghor 2003 [1939], 1963, 1966b: 16; Mouralis 1988: 5; Edwards 2001: 47–48; Jachec 2010; Diagne 2011; Wilder 2015: 51–64). Senghor's Négritude, in other words, took root in diaspora consciousness, but it also aimed to interfere with Eurocentrism on its own terms. Building on this essential but sometimes overlooked aspect of Senghor's project, I will argue that the École de Dakar was significantly international: Its core mandate involved facilitating cultural diplomacy with foreign national governments and societies. I will also argue that the École was transnational: Many of its members laid claim to multiple (often French and Senegalese) cultural elements and artistic traditions—if not by birth, then by education, travel abroad, or appropriated forms and techniques.To ground this claim visually, let us briefly consider Afrique (Africa, c. 1976, Fig. 1), a tapestry composition by the École de Dakar artist Ansoumana Diédhiou (1949–1990s). Although Diédhiou hailed from Senegal's lush southern Casamance region (Merceron 1966: 9) and may have been meditating on that landscape here, it is clear that his totalizing title, along with the depicted jungle flora, could easily evoke exotica for audiences viewing the continent from afar. Meanwhile, the composition's geometric patterns, strong lines, extreme flatness, sleek aesthetic, and bright colors link it to an international visual language of modernist abstraction. Diedhiou's artistic strategies in these ways both belonged to, and exceeded the scope of, Senegalese culture.By taking Diedhiou's Afrique as a point of reference, layers of internationalism and transnationalism can be seen embedded in the discourses, institutional histories, and artistic practices that were most relevant to the École de Dakar during decolonization. To paint this picture in broad strokes: Senghor in the 1950s championed francophone West African federation as preferable to fracturing the region into disparate independent territories; Dakar's national art school was established under the Mali Federation (1959–1960), Senegal's short-lived union with French Sudan (now Mali); many influential figures at the national art school in the 1960s and 1970s either received training in France or were themselves French; and works by École artists often circulated through channels devised by Senghor's culture ministries for the purpose of reaching audiences of diverse national backgrounds and to offer signature gifts of state to foreign dignitaries. Overall, Senghor sponsored modernism in his country not so much to galvanize the Senegalese as to project the image of a sophisticated and fully modern Africa around the world. The École was arguably conceived to reimagine, through art, Senghor's longstanding yet ultimately thwarted political dream of an African federation existing within multiple global communities wherein black cultural contributions would be highly valued.Following especially on Frantz Fanon's (1963 [1959]) well-known critique of Négritude as elitist and ineffectual, scholars and critics have tended to disparage Senghor for his longstanding ties to France and have often framed African modernism in relation to the postcolonial national cultures that Fanon championed. While in certain ways justified, these positions, as applied to Senegal, miss the pragmatism in Senghor's elite-driven cultural politics, whereby modern art was envisioned to build international bridges through high-profile channels. In a present scholarly conjuncture featuring proliferating discourses on “global” modernisms and contemporary art,6 it is worth investigating how Senghor—a distinguished twentieth-century figure by any standard—engineered Senegalese modernism to operate across borders.At the Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Rome (1959), Senghor famously stated that,With these words, Senghor highlighted the importance of creative expression to decolonization. And yet, for Senghor in 1959, decolonization did not, in an ideal scenario, equate to replacing the colonial territory with the independent nation-state. Beginning with the work of Ruth Schachter Morgenthau (1964), some historians of French West Africa have shown that the narrative of an inexorable and instantaneous national independence at the territorial level is one that has become dominant only in retrospect (Foltz 1965, Chafer 2002, Schmidt 2011, Cooper 2014, Wilder 2015).7 In a recent landmark study, Frederick Cooper notes how nearly every major political player native to the region through at least the mid-1950s sought to transform the colonial empire into one or another mode of federation or confederation of African states linked, in Senghor's terminology, both “horizontally” to one another and “vertically” to France (2014: 188). In 1959–1960, federal nationality remained a clear option for Senegal and French Sudan in the form of the Mali Federation until a complex concatenation of events drove each territory toward its own, isolated independence.8Other statements by Senghor serve to throw processes of decolonization into further relief. As quoted by Cooper, Senghor's worries about the prospects for maintaining the French Community of the fledgling Fifth Republic led him to write, in October 1959: “Nationalism, I acknowledge, is an illness. It conquered Europe in the nineteenth century, Asia in the first half of the twentieth century; it now gnaws at Africa” (Cooper 2014: 346–47).9 As articulated here, Senghor in the 1940s and 1950s did not tie advocacy for African rights and self-governance to demands for complete political autonomy. His anti-colonialism, in other words, avoided pivoting on the false promise of territorial nationalism, which risked engendering what he called “balkanization,” or the division of independent Africa into small, economically and politically weak states (Cooper 2014: 237). Though the potentials of supranational political unions were (and remain) contested, Senghor's bet was that a West African federation joined in confederation with France would give the region greater power and leverage in world affairs, while obliging France to make continuing concessions to its former colonies.By 1966, well after the collapse of both the Mali Federation and the French Community, Senghor's best-known statement addressing the “national” character of Senegalese art still defined the African nation as something transcendent of what it had become:Senghor here references some of the key elements picked up later by scholars to characterize Senegalese artistic production: shared identity, a recognizable style, imported techniques and media applied to African forms and subject matter. At the same time, it is impossible to overlook his of the nation as existing and of national as a complete culture and imported These point to a to of postcolonial Senegalese modernism to with Senghor's own Senghor in this to African states the drawn by Senegal's contemporary “national” culture would to while also French This of an West African artistic can be read as transnational in and It also Senghor's ideal of a West African federation that would strong between territorial states and between states and to the École's character also from the of art histories are now well but transnational to be in greater first of from the of the which has to the generation of Senegalese modern artists who under Senghor's In the not to have been by Senghor or the but by first of cultural affairs, on 1966, in a the at the of in Dakar 2001: or of has been but the the are the one hand, sought to offer Senegalese visual modernism a the artistic known in the other hand, could only to Senegalese art by it to French modernism and the École de As art historian has in an on toward a global aesthetic was from the point of of (2014: the of the École it is to with a of art in colonial Senegal. Although a de Dakar had many West African artists during 1940s through the 1950s (Sylla and the French colonial in a of cultural which a in artistic art had in Dakar during these the a of African had at the French and other but these artists remained in the among a of French artists in the and loosely the to the of French West Africa and the of the Mali Federation within the French Community in of 1959, a on 1959, a federal the within the on in Dakar, the school was to serve the federal As in the the school was to an a devoted to and what were to as a and were a and a cultural that and the school at this while and and the and cultural had yet to be established in this in the from France to the in the first of the was a and from who had also and art in France in the 1950s Diouf after the Mali Federation in 1960, the Mali became the École the the two and in the with an while The in included Ansoumana and along with two French in Dakar, and the of between and the to a new known as first were and by and In this was also joined by an influential French was a and who had the of modern in as as and Senghor had to Dakar to The of the École in the as stated in an by the Senegalese was to to artistic techniques while to of African to this the École at this a on and (cf. Senghor in and remained and in while the division the and forms and a from the with a West African as well as a and Fig. the de de known as the was in under the of This which artists to work as art may have toward given its French in and other Its included and of Senegalese art have identified two a training by in the and a fully the under and This demands to be on It is that training in and he at the as a of or that among quoted in and even he did not and sought to saw as in As of the he that would be his to with the has an of I in the École de in the only on the that his as the and for he to certain notions of stated in for all are one can the who have multiple a of composition and of the of quoted in 38). it to of as has that had (2006: his in of and in 1966: he may have in the of and did his was not for training at the École a who studied with the and in Paris and from and among was a figure as he was the in 1966: have to were even their have not in of Senegalese art In led the but he only French and also in in the was the of other from including one and briefly in of another tapestry to a of Senegalese and through on a imported from was also a a a an of and and French and African art The led by must have yet another of wherein was a de now was another important art during Senghor's in the of on the of a former the tapestry on Its by had in of Mali as well as two of modern French then of the École in and a Senghor as “the of the French in In his Senghor also the French artist in to a this one in did make this the the was who in Paris in the 1950s had studied modern applied at a on the de in the diverse media and techniques at the École on in the and tapestry in the of a in the for the was or Senghor's or it was who became the first and and who for the training of its first generation of and in Paris in (Senghor in applied as well as his artistic style, with his strong on to tapestry and his for and the of also a on production at on were and who all to work at and Ansoumana Diédhiou as the first generation of into for in a of that the artist in a in France in to the work of the artist In a more recent how he in art in Dakar, that it was the that most to what was in to the African was known for and and in applied as and The is especially in The of with The feature in and Although a can be in to his subject from both works feature and lines, in the and presence of and in the and 9) a of as of to As the Wolof hailed from of of the was for its was by the only École artist to cross-cultural To one further the artist stated in an that and French had first his in visual art as as the that his tapestry composition Senegal's national of from a character in The of loosely on The The in a to on the to paint multiple on his composition's to suggest with the international at a French artist and who had under to Senegal in to training and and to in for the of the tapestry at then as a from to own tapestry the de in a of Dakar and also as at beginning in the with on to at in the the art school in Dakar was under a new in as the École within a and the This must be in and the École de Dakar, in the that art training in the 1970s to be by French or by de art in other words, was in by and beginning in the the an and agenda in with cultural to the major of and by Senegalese cultural and the new called for art training while further in and other of At training remained and was by as and in and in art in and applied and and in and Meanwhile, the to be by artistic from the and and of known in Senegal and as under the of an who was a at in the art to have any in state to national and within Senegal during Senghor's national was the École de Dakar, Senegalese artists in Senegal, within a and international of cultural As as Senegal's of a that culture two institutional in the post-independence under the of and under the of Although of the culture division in is it was this that participated in in collaboration with the first of Senegalese art in Europe in the the established a within the of to and international which the and Asia in the 1970s and Senegal of of and scholars have the of international within the political of Senegalese modernism for his saw the at the in Paris as a … us to and scope of Senegalese art and its international an art which could make Senegalese artists of their a which was by the of the Senghor's language is here, as he the as the international of Senegalese To be the was by Diouf and were for the as in it was Senghor who sought to the École de Dakar And Senghor must have the for the one of the most through his with a former who as president from until his in to cultural Senghor's a key within foreign “Senegalese diplomacy had culture as its Senegal its presence known the world not through but through in this sometimes had a to within foreign as the of the president and the to be to political as gifts of The only the but at least a of are a first of Ansoumana composition for Senghor's as a for the of in And the of in the was in as a of state for not to be any between the and their but it is to read in the composition by in the by Senghor's to also and and for the state art the de which to including Senegalese around the world. Senghor's most project in this was the Senegalese complex in Fig. was by in with featuring African and as well as contemporary works from the École de Dakar The in as an for and artistic events to Senegalese culture and At the same time, the and in an that Senghor the complex to not only modern Senegal but also the of West Africa and a of African of the supranational of Senghor's cultural can be in the of the well-known of a global with multiple and among as well as among from in the and the 2002, and 2009, 2009, 2011, 2014, As in a from the the Senegal as the of the world and to black Senegal is not as a national but for its and its of was the Dakar to Senghor's cultural project that it a of during its Whereas Senegal's of included ministries of a newly in was from the of and by directly into Senghor's a new the and This the of Senghor's after the of from a to an and it with for the which were directly under Senghor's the up to the it was Senghor who cultural affairs, as both of culture and of by Senghor's the had of Senegal, with internationalism as its As historian has the for the had in Paris as as to the of the de to a black and culture to be in Paris with in his his the and while that the be more a a he to the international of the would be not a Black … but a Black in its for a that in the in its as a into the global did not up but as and have the a more a later at the Second Congress of Black Writers and it was to a black at the with on an art of African within the As in a statement in the core in the Rome Senghor would be the first to in a of and power to an he did with major from the French and as well as through international and by the de The was the of what had as a of participation i

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