The verbal and the visual in a globalizing context: African and European connections as an ongoing process

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Periodical article

Title:	The verbal and the visual in a globalizing context: African and European connections as an ongoing process
Author:	Schipper, Mineke
Year:	2000
Periodical:	Research in African Literatures
Volume:	31
Issue:	4
Pages:	139-154
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	visual arts literature
External links:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v031/31.4schipper02.pdf https://www.jstor.org/stable/3821083
Abstract:	This paper connects verbal and visual representations resulting from the contacts between Africa and Europe in both continents. Representation is understood as relationship, as process, as the relay mechanism in exchanges of power. The author first briefly goes into the invention of 'the primitive' by Western avant-garde artists, a matter of orally transmitted ideas resulting in visual forms of expression. Attention is paid to Picasso and, to a lesser degree, Dada. The author then discusses the impact of the colonial presence on narrative genres and visual art forms in Africa, notably origin myths and wooden sculptures that are referred to as 'colons'. Finally, she compares and connects the various issues discussed, as 'participants' in the interlocked process of representation. In this process of negotiation and appropriation there will certainly be more differences than similarities. Bibliogr.