is a mere means of communication that could be enticed from its original purpose to be a field of creation, where artists are quoted rather than exhibited. I consider myself as a creator (an African?) involved in research. What I find in
graphic research is the result of deliberate work rather than a hereditary gift or some sort of tradition that runs through generations and ages. Of course I am concerned with our traditional arts, but in no way would I neglect other
traditions nor would I distain what the contemporary world is offering me everyday. In 1990, while I was presenting a ceremony in France, some friends asked me whether
it was ‘African art.’ No, this is not African art and I won’t pretend to be a spokesman for the continent. My ceremony is merely an attempt to communicate the part of graphic work which is not transmissible through exhibition: its mobile and instantaneous aspect comes out of the unknown, the moment when the decision is taken, to be or not to be. No, it is not African art. Art is too fragile to support the burden of African underdevelopment… …There is no more African art except in the Western museums. There is no more
African art except in tourism, and [there are] no more Africans except in international human AIDs! What Africans are producing now in Africa is not ‘African art.’ It is just art produced by people who consider themselves as partners in a world they invent every moment…
Ten Tips on how not to become an African artist Hassan Musa prepared this text in Arabic and French to complement his graphic ceremony during African Artists: Schools, Studios and Society, which took place on the second day of 23-24 September 1995 as part of africa95. The text was printed in three languages in the symposium brochure; English translation by Pat Jenner.
1. Don’t trust historians! History didn’t start in prehistoric times. History has always been around. There never was a new blank page that historians turn over to mark the Break. There never was a Break with a past constructed with illusions of the present. The Avant-Garde always ends up by becoming a rearguard for the ranks that follow them.
2. Don’t believe everything they tell you about History! History—just like Art, women, religions and statistics—interests men only to the extent that they can demark its boundaries so that they can occupy the infinity of time and space, shutting out others. Colonial and neo-colonial Europe insist on imposing their own History on us, as if it was the History of Everything and the means to keep us outside.
3. Stop thinking that you are ‘Other’ just because that’s what others see! You are what you think you are because, as things are, being ‘Other’ means being excluded just because your ancestors have a history that differs from the Official History, the would-be Universal History. These days, having a ‘different’ history means not having one at all, especially when the Official History is that of the masters.
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