To see part 1 :http://africanartclub.com/african-art/je-ne-suis-pas-moi-meme/
Dear African Art Club readers.
The email from yesterday,”Contradictions in the African Antiques World“, clearly is an important subject, since it had the biggest open rate from all the messages I have send till know (55% opened email rate).
You can read it again, together with the comments of other members, and see this 50 minutes long video telling the story of an African runner from Cameroon and more here :
http://africanartclub.com/african-art/je-ne-suis-pas-moi-meme/
The main contradiction I see is not the fact, like someone commented, that Africans would get a lower price for there objects than in a gallery, NO because the objects you see at the galleries, are often vetted objects with a long past story, often with a documented provenance, and chosen by dealers with tens of year of experience, who studied the antique African Art objects, and selected them on there real age, beauty and provenance.
I also know African dealers coming from Africa who have good objects, and they often ask the same price a European dealer would ask me. But they are exceptions, most of the runners who show me objects, just have only copies with them. The real contradiction, is that African runners, often don’t know or pretend not to know if what they are selling is old or not, and as the title of the movie said ” Je ne suis pas moi-même”, ” I am not myself”, tells they are not selling what they pretend to sell, being “genuine and old” antiquities, and are behaving towards the clients in the western world in a different way, then when they are speaking to the African people who they are buying from. How is it possible that the Africans don’t know there own culture, and aren’t able to recognize if the objects they sell are genuine antiquities or not? But they do know what kind of patina will be able to sell to the small western collectors, and what restoration should be done to make the object “saleable”. I would not dare to ask 3,000€ for a mask I know was made yesterday and say it is hundred years old, but I guess it is part of the game, since the lady in the movie, propose to exchange it for a “white gold watch” that I guessed isn’t also in gold.
I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY 2013 !!
David Norden
P.S.: FAIR Warning if you did not yet joined , in +/- 24 hours I will increase the African Art Club Entrance Fee with between 20% to 60%, did not yet decided on the exact price point . I have many good ideas for the year to come for my members to help you increase your knowledge on what is genuine and what is not, where to buy and sell African art, and not to miss exhibitions, Fairs, and other members special deals, I was even thinking on maybe doing some online vetted auction, to help you sell genuine African Art. So this is your last chance to join at 10 euros a month
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MORE COMMENTS SEND TO MY EMAIL:
David,
I presume that you have lived or worked in Africa.
In no time at all things go mouldy.
Organic materials with mildew, without regular maintenance and airing, soon begin to degrade. This is difficult during wet months.
If it isn’t the mould that gets your things, it’ll be some form of parasite, mite, grub or termite – elephant bones are re-cycled by a moth grub!
Smoking, hanging things in a roofspace, has always been the best place to keep artefacts safe from wood-boring insects. This is also good for older people too.
It is a good contrivance for the fakers, too! And then there is the dung heap with its acid-ageing propensities!
The journals of the great Victorian explorers are full of anecdotes of how their equipment and clothing disintegrates.
I have never believed the ‘hundreds of years old’ asciptions for old-looking carvings. Things simply would not have survived in their native atmosphere.
Only for items such as my Ogboni staff, where a metallurgical analysis has been done, can you be sure that cast bronze is old.
The elaborate Mangbetu and Songye axes are likely to be old because of the quality of the smithing and detailed finishing. Modern craftsmen copyists simply do not have the quality of practical workshop input.
Best regards for a New Year of good finds.
John
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hartelijk dank voor alle emails die ik regelmatig mag ontvangen; leerzaam, instructief en stimulerend.
Vriendelijke groet,
Henk M.
—–
The basis upon which an ‘antiquity’ was defined in the Nigerian Antiquities Ordinance which applied in the Southern Cameroons in colonial times (I have no idea if it has changed) had no reference to the actual age of the object. If an object was made Yesterday for use in a genuine tribal ceremony it was categorised as an ‘antiquity’ and subject to the laws regarding export, and so on. Or if, for instance, the Fon of Bali sold, or gave, a section of a carved column from his compound to the Bamenda museum, (when Bamenda was still governed from Nigeria) and wished to replace it with a modern carving, the modern carving would become as ‘protected’ as the original. In those circumstances it became virtually impossible for an outsider, without impeccable rpoof of provenance, to know what was an ‘antiquity’ and what was not. Thus, in 1959 when a German collector of note who was endeavouring to export a collection of fifty crates through Lagos containing over 800 Igbo and Ibibio sculptures, and was challenged by customs, she did the only senisble thing and declared everything! As it was virtually impossible for the Government representatives to ‘prove’ that this, that, or the other piece was not made for the tourist market – (even though the crates were marked ‘Personal Effects’!) – they bought the bulk of the goods at a knock-down price for the Antiquities Department, but still let her take a substantial number with her. Only later did it transpire that on a previous journey (having supposedly – so it was said – bribed a customs officer) she had managed to take out an even greater quantity of masks and other objects without penalty, thus making her and her family rather well off in later years!!! There was skullduggery in the market half a century ago; and it is likely that there is no less today.
Yours,
Robert D
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Dear David
You have convinced me by your recent
Link – so I have joined your african art club
Michael
—-
Max: Your video link did not work
David : Please visit je ne suis pas moi-meme video link
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Thank you for the link, I really enjoyed the movie. I found it to be accurate, having been shopping for art in West Africa many times.
Many of us who have known a lot of African art runners (as I have for the past 40 years), know that lying and deceit is a respectable, and an expected, mode of transaction. They say what the buyer wants to hear. I feel the implied sympathy for the African dealer stems from a lack of experience of the type.
At least European and American collectors and dealers attempt to be honest, but even in transactions between westerners, the story is often what people buy.
Gregory Ghent
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Hi David,
in fact a very interesting film I must say,
thanks
and a happy new year
Adrian Schlag
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Dear David
I watched the movie and just found it “CONFIRMATIVE” (my own word for confirming something) of how I know Africa. Remember that I am a WHITE African, with my predecessors coming from France. They arrived here during 1688. Gosh it’s a long time ago! (French Huguenots). Through all the time we never changed and do things the way black Africans do it. We still have and will always have the European and French “style”. The difference, however, is that we KNOW Africa and their ways of doing business. I don’t need to tell you that Cameroon was again voted the “most corrupt country” on the continent. They deserve this title. I must say that Cameroon is one of the most beautiful countries on the continent (this is now apart from Namibia where I live). The people there are so poor that it is no wonder that they do things the way they do.
The movie did give me some idea. That is to learn African Art. In a previous mail I told you that I have no knowledge of African Art but that I do oil paintings. I’m not a Van Goch or Rembrandt but I love it. So African Art: HERE I COME!!
Luckily for the internet where one can pick up a lot of knowledge. I also have some “friends” in Cameroon who can give me information on how they work.
I will need all the support I can get from anybody knowledgeable and PLEASE WISH ME LUCK!!
Zanti
(Your friend in Namibia – Africa)
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Thank you, David, this is really very interesting. I shared it on FB.
Best regards and greetings for 2013,
Yves
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A lot if not most of the so called collectable African art currently for sale is only firewood, especially the pieces ‘found’ in Africa
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year !
Philippe NICOLAS
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Dear Mr. Norden
Thank you very much for this splendid movie, with its deep meaning. Art is something difficult to value, mainly African art, so beautiful and so hard to authenticate. The problem is ¿who can you trust? Experts are hard to find, and dealers you never know if they are trustworthy. However, my problem is not where to buy, but how to sell. My small collection comes from a very good provenance and the pieces are in good condition. The main problem is that I am in South America and the buyers are in Europe or USA, currently being offered fake pieces “made in Africa”.
Oddities of this strange world.
Cordially yours
Julio Villar Marcos
P.S. May 2013 be for you, as in wines, a good year.
—-
David,
What an excellent film.
You know that I mostly collect weapons and metalwork.
Having taught technology for several years I can look at the workmanship with admiration.
In a recent meeting with Lance Entwistle he said that ‘his’ African art is only to be found in Europe.
Keep up the good work.
John
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David , that is your view ,for me i will call the expertise about 20% correct it was more reliable 50/60 years ago , we did not have this accumalation of expert and auction house and new musee of art premier new term.
it was a very small world of real lover of primitif art, today it is speculator like the art business .
Quality is very rare in many ways.
Francois L.
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Very interesting David, exactly, funny how one object can be worth so much more in the “right” hands, contradictions in the African antiques world indeed!!
All the best for the new year.
David McC
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Great film. Thanks for sending that.
Alan Ribner
——
David, have you ever seen the video “In And Out Of Africa” which documents the life of a runner named Gbaare who brings merchandise in and out of New York and Brussels from Mali? It was made a number of years ago and distributed in VHS format. It was made by Christopher Steiner and featured Tim Hammill and Bernard deGrunne among others. It showed how pieces were faked to look old and it was similar to the one you described.
Gary Schulze
Dear Mr. Norden,
According to the ‘rules’ a Mr. White Man can be an expert and if he determines that in
addition to his aesthetic standards that a piece ‘X’ has been in a European collection
for ‘Y’ amount of years that therefor ‘X’ is worth much more money than a piece of the same
aesthetic quality but that has only recently been brought out of Africa. (A piece that on sight, or obviously, might have been carved earlier than or even by the same hand or from the same atelier as piece ‘X’.) Call the African’s piece ‘Z’. Let us assume that both the ‘expert’ and the ‘runner’ agree that ‘Z’ was carved by a traditional artist, in traditional style and commisioned by traditional patronnage for a traditional ceremony.
In fact usually we have no way of knowing which piece (‘X’ or ‘Z’) is older. Nor do we necessarily have to assume that Mr. White Man who says his piece ‘Y’ has been in Europe for so long is telling the truth or exagerating. He might have bought it cheaply from an African yesterday. Plenty of entries in Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogs simply are listed as, “Eurpean Collection” and some lots have no provenance cited at all.
Applying both fairness and logic, let’s try this: We can readily agree that after a certain amount of years of being in a European collection ‘Y’ warrants a high monetary value for a piece. We get this average amount of years simply by
averaging the presumed truthfulness of the provenance dates claimed in the auction catalogs. Let’s call this degree of respectable antiuqity or age “Y.”
We could then,say to the African who presents his authentic piece for sale today, “Let us not discuss money now. Let us record your ownership, leave the piece with [a Mr. White Man ] or whatever White Man expert in whose care we can entrust it (David Norden for Example) for ‘Y’ years (our averaged length of European provenance obtained from the auction catalogs). Then, Mr. African, come back in ‘Y’ years and we will pay you the accrued value XY determined by a trustworthy expert.
To begin with, even the piece that has been sanctified by Mr. White Man was obtained from
an African at one time in the past. As the African described in the film as a “runner” said,
“Eurpeans want to exclude the African from the biography of the piece.” A neocolonialist ploy.
In Accumulating Histories (2012), Charles Benenson broke with this habitaul hiding African provenances that is contrary to academic standards for the sake of greed. Benenson acknowledged provenances from: Asami Guitti, p. 90; Issaka Zongo, pp.98, 189, 190; Sulaiman Diane, pp.117, 175, 196, 197, 208, 210, 217, 221, 223; Mourtala Diop, pp. 133, 135, 136; Gadjigo Cheriff, p.196; Ousman Kaba, p.200; Samba Kamissoko, p. 206; Moussa Diane, p. 207; Sambou Keita, p.213; Amadou Njoya, p. 220; Demba Saccoh, p. 223; Miyapo Kolani, p.234; Kwabena Opoku, p.290; along with Deletaille, Komor, de Havenone, Scheinberg, Menist, Leloup, Lipkin, Klejman, Simpson et al.
But ‘reputable’ art dealers also hide the provenance of objects that they have obtained from other dealers or even collectors. This, for commercial motives or trade secrecy shall we call it. This is not helpful to academics who are very concerned about precise collection histories and corresponding dates.
Several years ago the late Sir William Fagg and I had a conversation about the price of art. He said, let’s take it a piece costs $50,000. Why so expensive? Factor in $10,000 for the piece, $10, 000 for the story and $ 30,000 for the address.
Sincerely yours,
George Nelson Preston, Ph. D.