Spreading the Culture

The ongoing question for this week was do you think the paintings are “ambassadors of cross-cultural pollination”? How? What other arts have we looked at that also seem to fit this label?  Before I could answer these questions I first had to understand what cross-cultural pollination was.  The best way I can describe it is, cross-cultural pollination deals with comparing or dealing with two or more different cultures and making these different cultures known to others by spreading them around in various ways.  The Ghanaian artists who made these pieces of artwork are helping us develop our own thoughts and ideas that come from studying these pieces of art.  For example, when I first glanced at Isaac Azey’s piece Power House 08’ all I saw was a funny depiction of President Obama with an older woman behind him on a Motorcycle with someone chasing him on a horse.  However, after taking several moments to examine the piece there is much more to it than just a funny picture.  The meaning behind each depiction is simply stunning.  President Obama is in fact riding a motorcycle with a lady on the back, but what you don’t notice is that it is his African grandmother embracing him with a joyous grin.  Inscribed on the motorcycle is “Change We Can Believe In”. Following behind him is John McCain riding a brown horse saddle flaps reading P.O.W. and “Nation first”.  The significance of the writings and readings dealing with Obama and McCain are clearly their campaign slogans or what they were known for.  The image is depicting them in a race to the white house.

To me this image is saying much more.  During the election for President Obama and McCain seemed to be in close running, that is until the results were in when Obama nearly double McCain’s votes, which I think is what the “race is trying to represent.  The horse and the motorcycle I think represents the more modern way of doing things and the horse represents the old fashioned way of doing things or older “traditional” ideas.  Having the first black President was a major milestone not only in America, but also in Africa as well.  As Cosentino mentioned in his article Ernie flew to Ghana to celebrate Barack’s inauguration with the masterminds behind these extreme canvases.  Peoples from all over the county came to Accra to bond over this memorable event.  He explained the cheering and hollering once they started to watch this event on TV.  This goes to show that as important as it was in our country to have the first black President that it is equally as important in other cultures too.

At first glance who wouldn’t find these images funny, but once you connect to the meaning behind it all it becomes much more than a funny picture.  It shows uniqueness, thoughtfulness, creativity, and most of all passion.  The article talks about how the artists paint because they can’t help it.  It’s therapy.  It’s what they were born to do.  They think a lot about their images before they paint them.  Especially those who paint out of the depth of their religious beliefs.

To address the question of do I think the paintings are “ambassadors of cross-cultural pollination”? My answer is yes.  For me when I looked at this image, as I said above, I didn’t connect to the meaning.  However, what piece of artwork do you really understand just by your first glance? It takes time to study the piece and to connect with it.  I think that is what the artists are trying to accomplish.  They want to make something that is pleasing and catches the modern-day viewer’s attention and put it into a perspective that we can relate to and understand, but yet get the word out at the same time.  They want to spread their ideas or thoughts through these pieces of artworks, and I believe that they nailed it.  The connection between the Caucasians and the Africans are trying to compare the different outlooks that we have, but showing them together helps explain that we all have different outlooks on the ways of doing things, it just takes a great leader to get things moving in the right direction. 

Some other examples of cross-pollination art that go along with this theme are the fancy-wax prints or portrait prints.  They are made in Great Britain and Holland but are brought into Africa.  These peoples make these cloths with the images of important influential leaders to show respect, but I also think that they are made to “get the point across” to others about what they believe in and what they think is important.   These cloths seem like a minor thing, but make a big statement.  The fact that they think so highly of a person and what that person believes in to wear them on their clothing says a lot about how much that person truly means to them.

It was very interesting to see how different these two examples are, but yet they are in a way the same.  One is done in a less formal way, yet the other is done in a more proper way.  They both seem to get the point across about the importance of influential leaders and their place in our culture and in other cultures around the world.