Briefly describe the object’s original context and intended function through library research. Next, focus on one or two things that can be learned about this culture from this art object (consider belief system, gender, political structure, economic structure, patronage, aesthetic system, etc.). This research must go beyond what you learned from class lecture and readings. Lastly, consider what happens to this object once it is bought and sold and ends up in a gallery, museum, the home of a collector, or on a tourist’s body. Address how the meaning of this object shifts once this object leaves its original context.
This paper should be 4-5 pages in length, typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. font, free of all spelling and grammatical errors, no plagiarism, with a clear, well-supported thesis. The bibliography of sources should follow the Chicago Style format and include at least two peer reviewed articles or books (like African Arts journal). Please submit in the Canvas folder in DOCX format.
PLEASE USE THIS AS ONE OF THE SOURCES:
A realistic Mercedes-Benz in a gallery of African Art elicits many reactions. “What is it doing here?” is usually the first question. Children are often quite vocal about wanting to know, now. Adult dealers, particularly teachers, look for the label. When they read the car is a coffin, they notice that it’s cut in two horizontally and just big enough to hold the recumbent body. Next question hangs in the air: “Why is an empty fully functional coffin considered art?”
For southern Ghanaian observers, it isn’t art. Coffins are a necessity, provided to honor the deceased and assist them in their transition into the next life. Coffins are ordered from workshop when a member of a wealthy family is nearing death. One of several shops is called Six-Foot Enterprises, where the coffin carver Paa Joe keeps photographs of the coffins ordered by other families. The number of selections grows each year. The deceased person’s profession or role in the community often determines the image.
Ghanaians order coffins not for display but to hold the body of the deceased and convey it to a lavish burial ceremony. Such custom-made coffins are a 50 year-old tradition whose inspiration can be traced to the special role the dead have among the Ga people. M.J. Fields documented how the influence of the dead was felt. Every time people ate or drank, they offered a portion to the ground for their forefathers. Whenever an oath was sworn, it was uttered in the name of the dead. When asked about their personal history, people were guarded in speaking of their predecessors. Field cited the word gblamo as an underlying explanation for this sense of the dead. Gblamomeans ‘reincarnation,’ and is the name of the vine that twines around a post. The most visible expression of this belief in life’s reccurring cycle came during funerals, when the dead were treated to as much opulence as a family could afford. Their bodies were laid out in fancy imported bed linens and adorned with gold ornaments. The house is open for a week, and wine and rum were provided for visitors. After friends and relatives had paid their respects, the deceased would be placed in the basket or wood coffin and carried around town for a goodbye. Once buried, the dead were believed to wander many days before crossing a river to a place from which they can observe the living and intervene on occasion.
Ghana became independent in 1957 and launched an area of industrial growth. The massive damn being constructed on the Volta River gave new work to Ghanaians. Kane Quaye established a workshop on the road from the capital of Accra to the new port, Tampa. Suddenly, the lavish burials that had once been the privilege of chiefs alone were now much more commonplace. Coffins were so much demand that Paa Joe, Quaye’s apprentice, remembers, “We worked day and night! We made Chevrolets, cocoa pods, whales, canoes.” This boom had been in effect for more than 10 years when an American art dealer commissioned seven coffins for display in her gallery in 1973. In a 1974 article, she called them “fantasy coffins” and remarked how they resembled “oversized toys”, but marked a “somber occasion with a gesture that is cheerfully confident and personally expressive.” In a 1995 catalog for Neiman Marcus, the lead line asks, “How about a chili pepper for the living room or fish for the garden?” Instead of emphasizing what they are for, the catalogue calls the coffins “more fun than any little decorative figurine.”
Excerpts from Pamela McClusky “Riding into the Next Life: A Mercedes-Benz Coffin” in Art from Africa. Long Steps Never Broke a Back. Seattle Art Museum, Princeton University, Press, 2002: 245-251.