Doing Hair Art and Hair in Africa

Doing Hair:

Art and Hair in Africa

Education Resource

Education resource compiled by Alison Kearney and edited by Leigh Blanckenberg

This booklet will be a guide as you explore the exhibition. It has spaces for you to draw in and write down your thoughts about what you see, hear and feel.

This book belongs to:

Art and Hair in Africa Look around you. Everybody has a different hairstyle. Some of the ways people choose to style their hair are influenced by who they are, where they come from and what they believe in.

In this exhibition you will see the many ways hair can reflect beauty, style, identity, and creativity across Africa.

Unknown artist Ibo. Nigeria Mmwo mask (maiden spirit mask). Unknown date.

Wood, pigment, textile, other materials. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Unknown artist. Ibibio, Nigeria. Seated female figure. Unknown date.

Wood, paint, metal nails. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Kitwa Biseke Luba. Democratic Republic of Congo. Mboko (bowl-bearing figure) Pre-1935.

Patinated wood. Wits Museum of Ethnology Collection (Wits Art Museum).

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Doing Hair: Art and Hair in Africa I EDUCATION RESOURCE

The History of Hair in Africa

Unknown artist. Baule, Ivory Coast. Waka San figure, Unknown date. Patinated wood, beads. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Hairstyles play an important role in African art.

The BaulĂŠ Waka San (People of wood) sculptures from Ivory Coast, and the masks made by the Mende of Sierra Leone each have hairstyles that show the beauty and importance of hair in their communities. These sculptures are also a great record of hairstyles that existed long ago and may even show how these older styles have influenced hairstyles today.

Let’s Write Look at the collection of sculptures and drawings in the Street Gallery. Many legendary hairstyles of people in Africa are represented.

Choose a sculpture with a hairstyle that interests you.

Artist:

Title:

Share why you have chosen this artwork.

Unknown artist. Mende, Sierra Leone. Sande helmet mask. Unknown date. Patinated wood. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

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Barbershop Posters Barbershop posters are artworks that are used to attract customers to hair salons. Popular hairstyles for men and women are painted onto boards and hung outside shop entrances and windows. Artists often paint celebrities like soccer players, actors and musicians who have popular modern haircuts, to attract people to their business. The signs often have price lists and names of the different styles written on them.

Unknown artist. Double-sided barber sign, Side A: Salon de Gods Time. Unknown date. Paint on wooden panel.

Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Unknown artist, Barber poster: Henry’s hair cut, 2009, Acrylic paint on board. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

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Let’s Write Look carefully at any two barbershop posters and discuss the questions below. Write your answers in the spaces provided.

What do you see that is similar in the two posters?

What do you see that is different in the two posters?

Write down some of the names of hairstyles you can see in the posters:

Can you spot a celebrity in any of the posters?

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Rules and Hair Hair is sometimes used as a way to control people. Rules about how hair should be worn are used to make everyone look the same. For example, soldiers who are recruited into the army are forced to have the same hairstyle, and many schools have dress codes that prevent certain hairstyles from being worn. People who break these rules are often punished or seen as rebels and outsiders.

Anders Kelto, South Africa. School year: A dress code to keep ‘gangsters’ away. Batabila. A ninth-grader at COSAT, shaves a schoolmate’s head while English teacher Mrs. Godden watches. 2013, Photograph. Courtesy of Anders Kelto and Public Radio International.

Let’s LISTEN Anders Kelto’s (2013) School year: A dress code to keep the ‘gangsters’ away.

Schools, the army and the police force are examples of places that have rules about how hair should look. What are the rules about hair at your school?

Why do you think the teacher makes the learners shave their hair in class?

Do you agree with her actions? Explain your point of view.

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Hair and You Hair can tell you a lot about a person and who he or she is. Hair is connected to ideas of what is stylish and beautiful. People use hairstyles to express their own unique identity.

Let’s Draw Select a mirror and look at yourself.

Use your imagination and draw the hairstyle that you would have if you were not limited by any rules. Give your hairstyle a name.

Describe how the hairstyle you have drawn expresses who you are.

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Hair Odds and Ends Creating fancy hairdos takes a lot of time. Over the years tools have been invented to create styles and keep them neat. Combs are not only used to brush out knots but can also be added as a decoration to a finished hairdo.

In many societies married women must hide their hair with special coverings that tell others that they are married.

Unknown artists. A selection of combs from the African continent.

Unknown dates. Wood. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Unknown artist. Zulu, South Africa, Isicholo (woman’s headdress), Unknown date. Fibre, textile, silver studs. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Let’s Draw Make a drawing of your favourite artwork in this gallery that would be used to decorate a hairstyle.

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Protecting your Hairdo One of the purposes of headrests in the past was to keep a person’s fancy hairstyle from getting damaged while the person was sleeping. They were also very personal artworks and express much more than a simple pillow would today.

By looking at the patterns and the design of each headrest, we can understand a bit more about the importance and unique identity of the person who owned it. In some African societies everybody had the same headrests while in others different styles of headrests were used by men and women.

(l) Unknown artist, Turkana, Kenya, Headrest, date unknown, wood, leather thong. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum); (m) Unknown artist, Pokot, Kenya, Headrest, date unknown, wood, beads. Presented in 1992 by Ken Karner to Wits Art Museum; (r) Unknown artist, Turkana, Kenya, Headrest, date unknown, wood, metal. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Let’s Write Find a headrest that interests you. Look at the label and make a list of the materials used to make the headrest. Describe what your headrest looks like.

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The Power of Hair Hair is a very personal material. It grows out of your body and – even when it has been cut off – it is still part of your body. This is why hair is often kept as a memento of another person who has moved somewhere else or who has passed away.

Unknown artist.

Luba/Songye, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nkisi (horn power figure) Pre-1935.

Wood, hide, fibre, horn, other materials.

Wits Museum of Ethnology Collection (Wits Art Museum).

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, strands of hair would sometimes be attached to minkisi, ritual objects that could bring harm or good luck to people. By attaching someone’s hair to the figure, the spirits that lived inside the sculpture could hunt down and find the targeted person.

Makonde carvers use hair on initiation ceremony masks to make the masks look more realistic. It is believed that the more real the mask looks, the more powerful the mask is.

Glossary: Memento: An object used to remember someone or something.

Realistic: When an artwork is close to looking real.

Unknown artists, Makonde, Mozambique, A selection of Mapiko. Unknown dates.

Wood, paint, hair. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Initiation ceremonies: Rituals marking the shift from childhood into adulthood in a society.

Let’s Talk Is hair seen as a powerful or dangerous substance in your community? Do you have special ways of throwing away human hair?

What emotions do you have when looking at the Minkisi?

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Hair as Material Hair can be used as a material in fashion and art. Hair is used to make wigs and hats worn by powerful members of society, like judges. A judge’s wig is a symbol of status, authority, and fair judgement.

Pieter Hugo. South Africa. The Honourable Justice Unity Dow, 2005, Lambda print. Image courtesy of Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town.

Glossary:

The red or white beaded caps worn by the Oba (King) of the Yoruba, who live in south-western Nigeria, also show status and are a symbol of the Oba’s right to pass judgement over cases held in his court. The shape and style of these caps are based on British barristers’ wigs, showing us that Yoruba wig makers used symbols influenced by the traditions of foreign invaders.

Status: The importance of a person in relation to others in a group.

Barrister: In England, a barrister is a lawyer who may plead on behalf of a client in the High Court. In South Africa we use the term advocate for this type of lawyer. In South Africa advocates do not wear barrister’s caps.

Let’s Write Find an artwork in which hair has been used as a material. Write down words to describe this artwork. Share why you think the artist has used hair in this artwork.

Unknown artist. Yoruba, Nigeria Oba (king)’s cap. Unknown date.

Beads, textile, palm fibre, feathers. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

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No large bags, flash photography, food and drink is allowed into Wits Art Museum. Please do not touch the artworks.

Front cover image: O.A. Heavy. J and Teshie, Accra, Ghana, ODK Hair Cut Cristiano Ronaldo, date 2010, paint on wooden panel. Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum).

Wits Art Museum Corner of Bertha Street (extension of Jan Smuts Ave) and Jorissen Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa Wits Art Museum Contacts +27 11Â 717 1378 Info.wam@wits.ac.za This education resource is sponsored by