FABRICATION: Toward an art centre and exhibition projects for Ghana

Abstract

This essay reflects on art developments that we might consider past and current expressions of local modernism in Ghana, in and around Kumasi. First, it discusses a museum project in Ho in Ghana: the setting up of a private gallery devoted to the work and life of the author's mother, Grace Salome Kwami, née Anku (1923–2006). The artefacts for the museum in Ho will include her works, but also a permanent collection of modern and contemporary Ghanaian art assembled by the author and Pamela Clarkson in Kumasi. The essay then moves to survey other important artists who have been influences on the author's own practice: Kofi Antubam, Grace Kwami and Kobina Bucknor. Their cultural productions inspired the book, Kumasi Realism, 1951–2007: An African Modernism 2013. Then follows a survey of artworks by selected masters of sign painting who have all contributed to the formation and development of Kumasi Realism. The article examines what King Samino, Alex Amofa, Kwame Akoto, Isaac Azey Otchere and several other artists are doing within a body of artistic practice that integrates signs, signboards, advertisements, current affairs, cautionary tales, portraiture and modernist painting. The overall aim is to explore the implications of being a modern Ghanaian artist, especially in the context of Kumasi.

Keywords:

• local modernity
• museum collection
• art education in Ghana
• contemporary art in Ghana
• Kumasi Realism