Academic literature on the topic 'Ghanaian Art'

This paper discusses Ghanaian clay practices and how their histories and some practices limit their clay discourse, creating a disconnect from ecologies of practice. Western contemporary and academic ceramics communities acknowledge the present and historic lack of diversity and inclusion of Global south indigenous practice, a condition that has been constant since there has been a conception of “contemporary ceramics”. Documentation of art has been largely the exclusive province of art historians, yet, Ghana never had art history has a major in any Ghanaian university including Achimota School that was set up by the colonial government. There are several ceramic material sites but no processing industries for creating products. This paper signals a rethinking of forms, economic exchange, materiality and recommends that it is expedient to expand Ghanaian clay practice discourse in all forms to connect to the ecologies of practice by forward-thinking, looking at the indigenous ceramic medium outside the pigeonhole, and pushing the boundaries of conventional Ghanaian ceramics.

This paper discusses Ghanaian clay practices and how their histories and some practices limit their clay discourse, creating a disconnect from ecologies of practice. Western contemporary and academic ceramics communities acknowledge the present and historic lack of diversity and inclusion of Global south indigenous practice, a condition that has been constant since there has been a conception of “contemporary ceramics”. Documentation of art has been largely the exclusive province of art historians, yet, Ghana never had art history has a major in any Ghanaian university including Achimota School that was set up by the colonial government. There are several ceramic material sites but no processing industries for creating products. This paper signals a rethinking of forms, economic exchange, materiality and recommends that it is expedient to expand Ghanaian clay practice discourse in all forms to connect to the ecologies of practice by forward-thinking, looking at the indigenous ceramic medium outside the pigeonhole, and pushing the boundaries of conventional Ghanaian ceramics.

This paper discusses Ghanaian clay practices and how their histories and some practices limit their clay discourse, creating a disconnect from ecologies of practice. Western contemporary and academic ceramics communities acknowledge the present and historic lack of diversity and inclusion of Global south indigenous practice, a condition that has been constant since there has been a conception of “contemporary ceramics”. Documentation of art has been largely the exclusive province of art historians, yet, Ghana never had art history has a major in any Ghanaian university including Achimota School that was set up by the colonial government. There are several ceramic material sites but no processing industries for creating products. This paper signals a rethinking of forms, economic exchange, materiality and recommends that it is expedient to expand Ghanaian clay practice discourse in all forms to connect to the ecologies of practice by forward-thinking, looking at the indigenous ceramic medium outside the pigeonhole, and pushing the boundaries of conventional Ghanaian ceramics.

This paper attempts to conceptualize the stylistic body movements in contemporary Ghanaian dances through the aesthetic lenses of performance art. The expressiveness of performance art forms is frequently praised for the emotions we have toward them. These feelings are derived from the symbolic connotations and functionalities of the arts in life. Through an exploratory design of qualitative inquiry, the researchers focus on a contextual dialogue on the aesthetic visual presentations of selected contemporary Ghanaian dances as performance art forms. The critical content analysis of music videos was espoused to examine the stylistic body movements and gestures coded in some contemporary Ghanaian dances such as Azonto, Twerking, Kupe, Pilolo and Shoo as part of an empirical artistic study. Instruments for data collection were observation, document analysis and photography for the contextual visual content analyses grounded in semiotic and aesthetic theoretical discourse. This study again relied heavily on secondary data from recorded communication including music videos, books, transcripts, websites, newspaper articles, journal articles and the like to make objective inferences. The findings indicate that dance is the communication that occurs via the conduit of the dancer's body that ruptures individuals' independent existence and generates a sense of finitude. Whereas some of the dances make aggressively erotic visual statements, others are mere expressive gestural and body movements to simply entertain a targeted audience. The result further shows that, the contemporary Ghanaian dance performances transcend beyond mere entertainment but rather are an embodiment of body language emerging from the indigenous dance symbolisms. Teaching learners to perceive visual aesthetic qualities and symbolic interpretations in dance performances will deepen the appreciation of Ghanaian dance performances not just as entertainment but as another medium for expression to transmit their inherent messages. It is suggested that, these dance forms should be formalized as indigenous knowledge in a quest to blend tradition with modernity in our creative endeavours. This knowledge should be propagated through creative arts education in Ghanaian schools. Other performance art components displayed in contemporary Ghanaian dances including body painting, facial expressions, costumology and fashion accessories present another lacuna for further research by future researchers. Key words: aesthetics, dance, therapy, performance art, body, movement

The girl child’s transition from childhood to adulthood, Dipo, is of prime importance in the development of the Krobo community of Ghana. The transition acknowledges the part women play in the welfare of society; hence the performance of elaborate puberty rites for girls. The performance of Dipo puberty rites is therefore regarded as a means of unifying teenage women in their social role and integrating the arts of the Krobo people. Furthermore, it reveals the significance of these different art forms in the life of the Krobo people and in Dipo performance in particular. The problem, however, is that although there are several artistic elements embedded in the performance of Dipo, they have not been documented as art forms; nor have they constituteded a site for critical discussion and appraisal of Ghanaian performing arts. Early historical and anthropological scholarship on Dipo almost completely overlooks these artistic elements. This essay responds to this critical gap by situating Dipo in the context of these artifacts as displayed in multiple phases of ritual ‘installation’ performance. This essay also identifies and examines the specific artistic elements featuring in the rite in order to highlight their embeddedness in and significance to the Krobo people, and, by extension, Ghana. The artistic elements in Dipo include ritualized visual, verbal, body, and theatrical elements, all of which are active and inseparable in the rites. As such, these art forms are analysed and discussed by means of figures and plates, which confirm visually their existence, aesthetic significance, and cultural value.

Ghanaian modernist painting started with the establishment of Achimota school in 1927 where the artists learned to combine the traditional Ghanaian artforms with the European representation artistic techniques. Though the influences of this new movement went beyond the academically trained artists to affect the self-trained artists, very little is known about it. The main objective of this paper was to conduct a biographical study of Nana Yaw Frimpong who without any art college training, booked a notable slot for himself through his painting within the modern Ghanaian art space. An Iconographic analysis of five paintings of Nana Yaw Frimpong using Erwin Panofsky’s three-step approach which include 1. the pre-iconographical description, 2. the iconographical analysis, and 3. the iconological interpretation. The selected paintings were compared to the philosophical underpinnings of the works of the earlier academically trained artists from the Achimota school. The findings revealed that the philosophy and style of Nana’s paintings were the philosophical foundations of modern painting in Ghana hence, placing Nana within the Ghanaian modern painting space.

AbstractEphraim Amu, 1899–1995, was the leading Ghanaian composer of ‘art music’ (the music of concerts, churches, schools and formal performance). This article is both a brief appreciation of the man as his ideas, personal practice and musical style developed over the years, and an account of the influence Ephraim Amu exercised over Ghanaian musical life.