Book Club

The art of influence: Asian propaganda will be published next Monday by the British Museum Press.

Revolutionary art generally means propaganda – art with a political message that is intended to motivate or persuade. However, propaganda is not just a sinister manipulation, as inferred in the West since the early twentieth century.

In revolutionary and wartime societies, propaganda is considered a vital part of education and political participation. Propaganda encourages or condemns; reinforces existing attitudes and behavior; and promotes social membership within nation, class or work unit.

The art of influence: Asian propaganda by Mary Ginsberg draws on the British Museum’s wide-ranging collection of Asian art to explore the use of political propaganda in Asia from about 1900 to 1976. This fascinating and provocative catalogue features over 100 works of art from countries such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and India. Posters, cartoons and ceramics are among the art forms that Ginsberg uses to illustrate the power of propaganda in twentieth century Asia.

The art of influence: Asian propaganda is published to complement an exhibition at the British Museum opening on 30^th May, which presents a selection of the British Museum’s rich collections of unpublished and rarely seen political art from Asia.

Ahead of publication, we’ve included here an extract from the book in addition to several striking artworks.

From the introduction:

This catalogue focuses on the twentieth century in Asia, an era of almost continual war and revolution with ever-evolving styles and techniques of propaganda. The account presented here takes the relatively neutral position that the main goal of propaganda – and propaganda art – is to create involvement. Not all propaganda is bad; it is not always lies. Propaganda aims to inspire action and belief in a common cause. It builds nations and defies enemies. It informs as well as persuades; promotes and admonishes; includes, excludes and shapes identity politics. It motivates obedience or resistance using a host of methods and modes of appeal.

Dawn of Victory, Liu Lun. China, 1941. Woodcut, ink on paper, 24 x 15.5 cm. Purchase funded by Brooke Sewell Permanent Fund.

Liu Lun (b. 1913) is a native of Guangdong province, where he trained in printmaking, actively worked in the wartime resistance movement, and taught for many years in higher institutions of art. The British Museum has nine of his works, eight (including this one) from the Thompson collection and one from the international exhibition organized by Jack Chen. Almost all his works are realistic; one print (fig. 16) records the carnage from an actual battle in 1942.

This remarkable patriotic print – heroic cavalry-men charging through the air on a cloud – is unlike any other by Liu Lun. It is rare to know the exact circumstances of a work from this period, but Liu Lun still remembers making it. It was created in 1941, during the second United Front between the Communists and Guomindang. Liu Lun was arts editor for the Creative Committee for the number 4 war district in Guangdong. The Committee published a magazine called New Construction, and this print was made for its cover, to promote resistance and inspire the public. This was the only wartime print he made in what he calls the romantic style, inspired by contemporary Western pictorals.

Plate, 1930s (probably), India, Bamboo, split and coiled, and lacquered, Diameter: 15.2 cm.

Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869 – 1948), one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, was committed throughout his life to principles of non-violence (ahimsa) and Indian self sufficiency (swadeshi). In the long campaign for self-rule (swaraj), Gandhi promoted boycotts of foreign goods (mainly British and Japanese) for both political and economic reasons.

His tool was the spinning wheel (charkha), with which he is depicted here. India exported ever-increasing amounts of raw cotton, but would not become a net exporter of cloth piece goods until the 1940s. Gandhi exhorted villagers – especially women – to revive the rural economy by spinning cotton yarn to supplement household agricultural income. The yarn production also supported the carders, weavers and dyers of the cloth. Gandhi’s charkha became the symbol of swadeshi and appeared on the flag adopted by the Indian National Congress in 1931.

This small plate was made in Burma (possibly Pagan) by the laborious and expensive shwe-zawa technique using black lacquer and gold leaf. Many Indians settled in Burma in the colonial period.”

Long live Marxism, Lenism, Mao Zedong Thought.  Late 20^thcentury, China. Papercut, 16.3 x 27.6 cm. Given by Andrew Bolton.

Papercuts were traditionally made in China as decorations for festivals and rituals. This was an art of the common people, for holidays, weddings and marking the seasonal activities of village life. Particularly at the time of Spring Festival (New Year), farmers and craftsmen made ‘window flowers’ to invoke blessings for the coming year. Among the earliest surviving examples are the ninth-tenth-century flowers found in the so-called Library Cave (Cave 17) at Dunhuang, now in the British Museum.

Communist arts policy transformed this centuries-old folk art into a progressive tool. Decoration for its own sake was anti-revolutionary, but traditional crafts were to be encouraged, their content altered in the service of politics. Gu Yuan and other trained artists at Yan’an produced papercuts during the Resistance War. They were an attractive, comprehensible vehicle to promote production, literacy and support for the army. Propaganda papercuts are still made today.

Papercuts are made with scissors or with knives. Knife-cutting is used for production in large quantities, and professional artists execute topical sets for domestic and foreign consumption. There is nothing left of the bold, colourful folk style in this group portrait of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao – where Mao is nearest to the viewer, and just a bit larger than the others.

Text and images © The Trustees of the British Museum.

For further information on The art of influence: Asian propaganda and to look inside the book, please visit the British Museum online shop.

Mary Ginsberg will be speaking about The art of influence: Asian propaganda at The Telegraph Hay Festival on Sunday 2^nd June.

Kitaj Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné will be published on Monday by the British Museum Press.

This beautifully illustrated new book explores the range of graphic works of R.B. Kitaj, one of the most thought-provoking and controversial artists of the second half of the twentieth century.

American-born artist R.B. Kitaj’s (1932–2007) distinctive, highly personal and often challenging works drew on many influences ranging from literature to politics and film. The British Museum holds a near complete set of the artist’s proofs, the best representation of the artist’s graphic works in the UK.

Kitaj worked in England for almost forty years – until 1994 when his ill-fated retrospective exhibition at the Tate was savaged by the critics. Hurt by the hostile reception of his works in his adopted homeland and grieving for the sudden death of his young wife, the painter Sandra Fisher, Kitaj left England for good, returning to America, declaring, ‘London is dead to me now’. It was in London that he developed his early style and influenced many of his close circle of friends, including David Hockney, who he met at the RCA, and Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. This led him to coin the term ‘School of London’, later associated with this group of purely figurative artists.

This exciting and beautifully produced book amounts to the definitive collection of the artist’s graphic works, and is the first to examine in detail Kitaj’s prints for almost twenty years, featuring 300 pieces.

A forthcoming exhibition at the British Museum from 30 May to 1 September 2013, Recent Acquisitions: Arcimboldo to Kitaj will showcase many of Kitaj’s striking graphic works, which are featured in the catalogue.

Ahead of publication, author Jennifer Ramkalawon, curator of prints and drawings, chooses her favourite pieces.

Boys and Girls! (detail), 1964. Colour screenprint.

In Kitaj’s 1965 New York exhibition catalogue he placed this print with the Mahler group and stated that it was associated with ‘the 2^nd movement of the 2^nd symphony. At the bottom right is Werner Krauss playing ht lead in the anti-Semitic movie Jud-Suess. The central photo was taken from a post-war German nudist mag’.

La Luca del Pueblo Español por su Libertad, 1969 – 70. From the series, In Our Time: Covers for a Small Library After the Life for the Most Part, 1969-70. Colour screenprint, photoscreenprint. 770 x 575 mm.

A large reproduction of the cover of La Luca del Pueblo Español por su Libertad, compiled by A. Ramos Oliveira (The Press Department of the Spanish Embassy, London 1937). First published 1937.

The Red Dancer of Moscow, 1975. Colour screenprint, photoscreenprint, 1013 x 750 mm.

Here Kitaj reuses the figure of the woman in the print Cutie, 1974 (cat. 180) along with the head of the sailor from the print Cap’n A.B. Dick, 1975 (cat. 201).

Self-portrait (After Matteo), (detail), 1983. Soft-ground etching.

This portrait appears to be based on a figure from Massacre of the Innocents, 1482, a painting by Matteo di Giovanni (c. 1452 – 95; Sant’ Agostino, Siena). The man directly beneath Herod’s right hand wears a black cap and stares out of the painting with a direct gaze, which Kitaj has adopted for his self-portrait. This is the reverse image of the charcoal drawing on green paper, Self-portrait (After Matteo), 1982 (estate of the artist).

Text and images © The Trustees of the British Museum, extracted from the book.

Kitaj Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné by Jennifer Ramkalawon is published by the British Museum Press, and is available in hardback at £40. For more information and to look inside the book, visit the British Museum online shop.

To complement the current exhibition at the British Museum, the Great Court Restaurant has created a set menu designed to complete your day out. Inspired by the Life and Death of Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition we collaborated with Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger, the authors of The Classical Cookbook to create a set menu composed of classic Roman dishes.

Friday 17 May 2013 from 6.30– 8.30pm

Great Court Restaurant, British Museum

Join us for a three-course meal inspired by Roman cuisine from The Classical Cookbook by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger.

With its subtle mix of sweet and sour flavours, its fragrant herbs and exotic spices, pungent fish sauce and cheesecakes running with honey, the cuisine of the ancient Mediterranean is sure to whet the appetite of every modern gourmet. Enjoy authentic recipes, translated and adapted for modern dining. The authors will give a short introduction to the dishes, painting a vibrant picture of living, wining and dining in the ancient world.

The Classical Cookbook
by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger

“History to devour – a scrumptious book”
Lindsey Davis

“Written by a food historian who happens to be a classics scholar, with an archaeologist who happens to be a chef, The Classical Cookbook is a mouth-watering introduction to the food from Ancient Greece and Rome… It gives fascinating information about the two ancient societies and their eating habits.”
The Good Book Guide

£35 pp, including glass of Prosecco on arrival.

The event is for bookings only. Reservations can be made via email at bmrestaurant@benugo.com or telephone 02073238990.
(Credit card details will be requested in order to secure reservations.)

Today would have been William Shakespeare’s 449^th birthday.  We’ve included here an excerpt from our 2012 bestseller Shakespeare: staging the world, shedding light on Shakespeare’s world  in his first year of life.

“William Shakespeare was born in 1564, on or about 23 April, St George’s Day. He was baptized in Holy Trinity Church in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon in the Midland county of Warwickshire, on 26 April. His father was John Shakespeare (c. 1531 – 1601), a glove-maker. His mother, Mary Shakespeare (c. 1537 – 1608) was born Mary Arden, daughter of a yeoman farmer from the nearby village of Wilmcote.

Stratford was a crossroads between very different worlds. The ancient forest of Arden lay to the north, while there was rich farming land to the south. Within a hard day’s walk was the university city of Oxford. To the east, and closer, were Kenilworth, home of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532 – 1588), and Warwick, where stood (in considerable disrepair) the castle of the Earls of Warwick. Just beyond that lay Coventry, the fourth largest city in the land. At the time of Shakespeare’s birth, the old biblical plays from medieval times – Creation and Flood, Crucifixion and Judgement – where still performed there annually on pageant carts stationed around town. The country and the city, the old rural ways and the new learning, the traditions of play-acting and the powerful presence of the aristocracy: some of the key resources for the creation of Shakespeare’s imaginary worlds were present in his very childhood environment.

Playing cards with maps of English and Welsh counties. Stratford is marked with an S on the map of Warwickshire. Designed by William Bowes and engraved by Augustine Ryther in 1590, this is the earliest known set of cards with English county maps. Hand-coloured engravings, 9.5 x 5.7 cm. British Museum, London.

For centuries the administration of government and of the law in England had depended on the king or queen, or their representatives, notably the judges, travelling the country on ‘circuits’. Shakespeare was born on the margin between the Midland circuit, which consisted of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Lincolnshire, and the Oxford circuit, which covered Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Among the many hundreds of stage plays that arrive from his lifetime, the only ones that include scenes located in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire are his. His territory, then, was the Midlands. In the national imagination, ‘Shakespeare country’ would eventually become synonymous with ‘Middle England’.

In the year that he was born it became possible to visualize the shape and disposition of the counties or shire for the first time. Laurence Nowell’s ‘A general description of England and Ireland’ was made for Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley (1521 – 158). Stratford-upon-Avon is marked near its centre. Six years into the reign of Elizabeth I, it shows a view of Englishness and nationhood as Shakespeare’s generation experienced it.”

Text and images © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Shakespeare: staging the world, written by Jonathan Bate and Dora Thornton, is available for £25 in paperback and £30 in hardback from the British Museum online shop.

We’re pleased to announce that a new paperback edition of our beautifully illustrated book, Masks: The Art of Expression, is published today.

From ancient times to the present day, masks and the practice of masquerading have exerted a powerful fascination among people around the world. Through their ability to conceal, reveal and transfigure, masks have become a near-universal phenomenon yet their nature, functions and meaning of these disguises are strikingly different across cultures.

In ritual and religious use, as today in Africa or Oceania, mask-wearers may be thought to be possessed by – or even become – a spirit or a god. In ancient Egypt, funerary masks were intended to equip the dead with divine powers and attributes, but the masks used in Japanese Noh plays or in ancient Greek drama helped to portray character. The masks themselves are extraordinary objects made from every kind of material. Beautiful, elaborate, fierce, grotesque or elegant, they demonstrate the creative skills and aesthetics of many different periods and cultures.

This updated edition of a classic book showcases an array of magnificent masks from the British Museum’s collection and beyond. Including examples from eight principal areas – Africa, Oceania, Latin America, the Northwest coast of America, Japan, classical Greece and Rome, Egypt and Europe – Masks: The Art of Expression provides a fascinating insight into the great variety of masks and masking traditions around the world.

We’ve included here a short selection of masks featured in the book.

The mask of Hanna is one of the most well-known masks from Nō. It is used for the character of a jealous and revengeful demon who was once a beautiful woman. The eyes, originally of gilded metal, glare out, the mouth is drawn wide open in a ferocious snarl and the horns embody evil. Only the faint trace of eyebrows high on the forehead and the suggestion of delicate features indicate her former beauty. H. (without horns) 20.3 cm. British Museum 1946,1216.2. Donated by C. Winch.

North American wood mask, probably representing a creature of spirit associated with a specific family tradition in the Winter Ceremonial. Collected, before 1868, at Fort Rupert, the Hudson’s Bay Company post at the northern end of Vancouver island, where the Kwakwaka’wakw met and traded with other peoples from further north. H. 20 cm. British Museum Am.1562. Donated By Henry Christy.

Dance mask in the form of a demon’s face. Papier mâché covered with clay. Chorida, India, 1994. H. 57 cm; W. 51 cm; Donated by Daniel J. Ryscroft. British Museum As1995,17.3.

North American mask of wood and fur, from the Makah, Washington State, representing Bookwus, Wild Man of the Woods. 20^th century. H. 23 cm. British Museum Am1941,01.1. Donated by Harry Geoffrey Beasley.

Text and images © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Masks: The Art of Expression is edited by John Mack and is published by the British Museum Press at £25. For further information, please visit the British Museum shop website.

On this day in 1012, the Vikings brutally murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ælfheah, at Greenwich. The Vikings are popularly known as marauders, seafarers and adventurers, but did you know that they were also highly regarded as poets?

Viking culture valued poetry highly and rewarded poets handsomely. The language of Viking poetry is colourful, intricate and is often light-hearted, even in the face of death and tragedy. Their themes are mythological, military and memorial with some distinctive love poetry that encompassed both native traditions and literary influences from further south.

Viking Poetry of Love and War, edited by Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham, Judith Jesch, and published this Spring by the British Museum Press, features a collection of short poems and poetry extracts from the core period of the Viking Age and its aftermath, c. 900 – 1300. The selection draws on the main themes of love and war and gives a sense of the range of poetic modes and genres that were popular during this age, offering a fascinating glimpse into the ideology of the time.

Below is an exclusive selection of extracted poems from Viking Poetry of Love and War. Enjoy!

Beserkers (Norse warriors) from the Lewis Chessmen. Walrus ivory chess pieces, probably made in Norway, c. 1150 – 1175; found on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. Heights (from left) 8.5 cm, 9.2 cm and 8.2 cm. British Museum.

Anonymous, from the Poetic Edda

“… you need a ship for gliding,

a shield for protection,

a sword for striking,

a maiden for kissing”.

Anonymous, 11^th century

A Viking tells a woman of the capture of London

Every day of Hogni’s door

became quite bloody, goddess,

when we fought in the fray,

early, with our leader.

Since hard-fought fight is now

finished, we can sit in fair London, o land

of the sun of the sea.

Hogni’s door = shield; sun of the sea = gold, its land = woman

Silver bossed penannular brooch in the Irish tradition, with animal heads detail. 9^th – 10^th century, found at Goldsborough, North Yorkshire, England. Diameter 8.5 cm. British Museum.

Magnus ‘Barelegs’ Olafsson, king of Norway (11^th century)

Magnus falls in love in Dublin

What’s this talk of going home?

My heart is in Dublin,

and the women of Trondheim won’t see me this autumn.

The girl has not denied me

pleasure-visits, I’m glad;

I love the Irish lady

as well as my young self.

Images ©Trustees of the British Museum

Poems and images extracted from Viking Poetry of Love and War, by Judith Jesch, available for £9.99 from the British Museum online shop. British Museum Press 2013.

To celebrate the opening of the Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition, here are two recipes from The Classical Cookbook, so that you can experience authentic flavours from the ancient world!

Two silver spoons, one in the shape of a duck, dedicated to the Roman forest-god Faunus. Roman Britain, from a treasure found on Gallows Hill, Thetford, Norfolk in 1979. L. (of longest spoon) 9.2 cm. British Museum.

Parthian Chicken

Parthian chicken. Open the chicken at the rear and spreadeagle. Crush pepper, lovage, a little caraway, moisten with fish sauce, blend with wine. Arrange the chicken in a Cuman dish and put the sauce over it. Dissolve strong asafoetida in warm water; pour over the chicken as you cook.
Serve seasoned with pepper.

-Apicius 6,9,2

This is a simple dish, and very unusual in a Roman context, for it contains no sweetner. It is interesting that it is named after Parthia, Rome’s rival in the Middle East, and notable that asafoetida is the dominant flavour. This may confirm that the recipe was Parthian in origin – or at least it may explain how it got its name – for asafoetida came to Rome from the Parthian Empire. Caraway, on the other hand, is of central European origin. It was certainly the Romans who added to this dish.

Serves 4

4 pieces chicken (breast or leg)
6 fl oz (3/4 cup/170 ml) red wine
2 tbsp (30 ml) fish sauce
½ tsp asafoetida powder
or 5 drops asafoetida tincture
2 tsp chopped fresh lovage or celery leaf
½ tsp ground lovage seed
2 tsp caraway seeds

Place the chicken in a casserole dish and sprinkle liberally with pepper. Combine the wine, fish sauce and asafoetida, add the lovage and caraway seeds and pour over the chicken. Cover and bake in a pre-heated oven at 375°F (190°C/gas mark 5) for 1 hour. Halfway through the cooking time remove the lid to brown the chicken. Serve with a little of the sauce poured over the meat.

Cockerel, the ‘waking bird’. Introduced from southern Asia to Mediterranean lands around 700 BC, chickens soon became the typical barnyard fowl and a popular sacrifice. Mosaic panel from Halicarnassus in Roman Asia Minor (now Turkey), 4^th century AD. Diam. 43.5 cm. British Museum.

Pancakes with Honey and Sesame Seeds

Let us find time to speak of other cakes, the ones made with wheat flour. Teganitai, as we call them, are made simply with oil. The oil is put in a frying-pan resting on a smokeless fire, and when it has heated, the wheat flour, mixed with plenty of water, is poured on. Rapidly, as it fries in the oil, it sets and thickens like fresh cheese setting in the baskets. And at this point the cooks turn it, putting the visible side under, next to the pan, and bringing the sufficiently fried side, which was underneath at first, up on to the top, and when the underneath is set they turn it again another two or maybe three times till they think it is all equally cooked. Some mix it with honey, and others again with sea-salt.

-Galen, On the properties of Foods 1,3

It is continual surprise how little food changes from one millennium to the next. The great physician Galen (AD 129-? 199/216), a tireless observer of details of food and drink, gives a description so serious and painstaking that we smile to imagine him making notes as he watched a cook turning pancakes. It is hard to remember that he is writing 1,800 years ago. What is more, the dish was already 800 years old in his time. The early Greek poet Hipponax had written of pancakes ‘drugged with sesame seeds’.  Comedy gluttons on the Athenian stage had spoken of ‘mist rising at dewy daybreak from warm pancakes’ and of honey poured over them as they sizzle: a breakfast meal, no doubt, and one that was possibly sold on the streets of ancient Athens from portable braziers.
You can serve modern pancakes with honey and toasted sesame seeds. However, what Galen is describing is not precisely the pancake familiar to us, but something as thick as a blini or even thicker, considering that it is to be turned so many times. I also suspect that more oil was used for frying than we would normally use, and this is reflected in the modern adaption…

4 oz/120 g/1 cup flour
8 fl oz/225 ml/1 cup water
2 tbsp/60 g clear honey
Oil for frying
1 tbsp/15 g toasted sesame seeds

Mix the flour, water and 1 tablespoon honey together into a batter. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a frying-pan and pour a quarter of the mixture into the fat. When it has set, turn it two or three times to give an even colour. Cook 3 more pancakes hot with the remainder of the honey poured over and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Images ©Trustees of the British Museum

Recipes, text and images extracted from The Classical Cookbook, complied and edited by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger, available for £10.99 from the British Museum online shop. British Museum Press 2012.

The Telegraph Hay Festival runs for ten days with a packed programme of debates and conversations with poets and scientists, novelists and historians, artists and gardeners, comedians and musicians, film makers and politicians.

This year, the British Museum Press is pleased to announce three events at the festival, for Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum by Paul Roberts, Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind by Jill Cook, and The art of influence: Asian propaganda by Mary Ginsberg.

For full information on the 2013 Hay Festival programme and for information on how to book tickets, please visit their website.

The British Museum at The Telegraph Hay Festival 2013

Paul Roberts

Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

Event 277 • Thursday 30 May 2013, 1pm • Venue: Sky Arts Studio

An exploration of the lives of the ordinary people of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the two cities on the Bay of Naples that were buried by the catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The plaster-cast bodies of the victims are the most vivid and shocking reminders of the horrific event that made Pompeii famous, but who were these men, women and children so cruelly frozen in time?

Tickets: £6

Jill Cook talks to Francine Stock

Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind

Event 134 • Monday 27 May 2013, 10am • Venue: Sky Arts Studio

The curator of the blockbuster exhibition explores the extraordinary sculpture and drawings created during the last European Ice Age, the oldest known figurative art in the world. Highlights include the Swimming Reindeer (13,000 years old), the so-called Willendorf Venus (25,000 years old) and the Vogelherd horse (32,000 years old).

Tickets: £7

Mary Ginsberg

The art of influence: Asian propaganda

Event 414 • Sunday 2 June 2013, 11.30am • Venue: Google’s Big Tent

Where the majority of a population is illiterate, art is the most effective way to communicate the message. The curator of the new BritishMuseum show examines propaganda ‘art’ as political communication, social cohesion and absolute control.

Tickets: £7

We hope to see you there!

Whether it’s the biggest names in publishing, politics, television, radio, art, theatre, or sport, The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013 has it all.

There are hard-hitting debates on controversial subjects, comedy from the country’s top stand ups, interactive media sessions, unique food and drink evenings, writing workshops and masses of family fun talks and activities.

This year, the British Museum Press is delighted to host two events at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, for Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum by Paul Roberts and Indian Love Poetry by Anna Dallapiccola.

Indian Love Poetry

Saturday, 23^rd March 2013

12.00PM – 1.00PM

Christ Church: Festival Room Two

Tickets £11

Full details on the Oxford Literary Festival website

Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

Sunday, 24^th March 2013

2.00PM – 3.00PM

Christ Church: Festival Room Two

Tickets £11

Full details on the Oxford Literary Festival website.

To find out more about these events and to book tickets, visit The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival website.

Printed cloth (kanga). Cotton. Tanzania, early 21st century. 105 x 154 cm British Museum, Af2002,09.4 The inscription reads: ‘You know nothing’.

African textiles today: social fabric of the east and south opens on 14^th February at the British Museum. This exciting exhibition takes a new look at the history and continuing significance of textile traditions in eastern and southern Africa, the patterns of global trade they reveal, and the ways in which these traditions have influenced some of the region’s foremost contemporary artists.

We’ve published here an exclusive interview with the exhibition curator, curator of the African collection at the British Museum and author, Chris Spring.

How did you first become involved in the study of African textiles?

Ever since Picton and Mack’s pioneering exhibition at the Museum of Mankind and book African Textiles (British Museum Press 1979), the Department of Ethnography (now AOA) has had a keen interest in textiles. My first fieldwork in Africa in the early 1990s was concerned with the textile traditions of Egypt and North Africa, which resulted in the book North African Textiles (British Museum 1993) and an exhibition, ‘Display and Modesty’, at the Museum of Mankind. 

How have developments in the last ten years changed the way we should look at textiles? Is the study of African textiles in particular more or less relevant to the world today?

In the last ten years the British Museum has begun to make serious, systematic collections of certain printed and factory woven textile traditions from Africa, first as a result of my fieldwork (2002-) in eastern and southern Africa (which resulted in the ‘Kanga’ exhibition in the BM’s North entrance and a semi-permanent display in the African Galleries), then in response to the 50^th anniversary of Ghana’s independence on March 6^th 2007 (which resulted in the exhibition ‘Fabric of a Nation’ which toured widely both in the UK and in Ghana). From these and other exhibitions, publications and research it has become easier to show how certain types of ‘African’ textiles have become global phenomena, just as certain types of textiles from the global community have become African phenomena. The study of African textiles has never been more important, not only as a way of understanding how important Africa is and always has been to the rest of the world, but also how Africa adores and transforms the rest of the world through the lens of its artistry.

In the book, you talk a lot about textiles as a means of communication– which piece in the exhibition/book do you feel has the most interesting story to tell?

It’s a difficult question because so many – arguably, all – the textiles in our collection have fascinating stories to tell. However, my favourite has to be the story of how I came to collect my very first kanga with the inscription ‘HUJUI KITU’ – ‘You know nothing’.

Please take what you want from the following:

In 2002 my work at the British Museum took me to Tanzania, ostensibly to research divination and spirit healing , though quite unexpectedly it also took me down a path of research into the printed textile traditions of eastern and southern Africa, including capulana from Mozambique and shweshwe from South Africa, which have been a growing interest of mine ever since*. I had been told (by a senior colleague of mine at the British Museum who should have known better) that ‘there are no significant textile traditions to speak of in this region of Africa’, so it came as quite a surprise, on my first morning in Dar Es Salaam, to find myself in the midst of arguably the largest and most dynamic textile tradition in Africa. Of course, what my learned colleague meant when he referred to ‘textile traditions’ are the hand-woven, locally produced cloths, often intended for use only on certain special occasions and requiring a high level of manual skill in their production. So I deliberately set out to find a pair of kangas (they are sold in pairs and later cut and hemmed by Swahili women) in the local market which least conformed to my colleague’s notion of an ‘African textile’.  My eye was immediately drawn to a design of blue and red circles, a bit like a Damien Hirst spot painting, contained within a simple border of black lines. Factory-printed in India, the cloth was wrapped in cellophane and was considerably cheaper than some of the other kangas on sale which I later discovered were locally printed in Tanzania.

I showed my purchase to my friend David who was working with me; in common with all kangas it had an inscription in Kiswahili printed immediately below the central design: HUJUI KITU. “What does that mean, David?”  “You know nothing” he answered smiling. “I know I know nothing, but what does it mean?” “You know nothing – that’s what it means!” David went on to tell me that it was a design and inscription often worn by older women as a rebuff to their younger and cock-sure rivals, and from that point I began to realise why this textile tradition was so popular, so significant, so extraordinary and so ‘African’.

Next day, on the road to Bagamoyo, I saw a woman wearing HUJUI KITU and it struck me that the textile’s message could equally well apply to me and to my learned colleague from the BM as it could to the women for whom it was intended – if ‘you know nothing’ you may begin to learn something, whereas if you think you know everything you will never learn anything.

Your book covers textile production and techniques from across the African continent; is there one place that has inspired your study in the field?

I loved my early fieldwork in the oases of Egypt’s Western desert, then in the suqs and textile lofts of Tunisia’s towns and villages, but I think it was my visit in 2002 to the Urafiki (‘Friendship’) integrated textile mill in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in the company of my friend the artist Robino Ntila, which first gave me an understanding of the complex processes and skills which go into the production of the printed cloths which would be the subject of my research for the next ten years.

The African Textiles Today exhibition opens on 14^th February, how did you find the experience of curating the exhibition compared with the creative process of writing the book?

Given that we’re opening on Valentine’s Day, I suppose I should be saying something about being torn between two equally beautiful and alluring… but.

The final process of bringing a book together is very much a team effort, though before that there are many months of quite solitary writing. Curating an exhibition, on the other hand, is very much a team effort right from the start. It is a great pleasure to work with friends and colleagues who have a passion for textiles. A huge amount of work has gone on for months in mounting and preparing the textiles to make sure that when it comes to installation, nothing is left to chance. I’m talking about Helen Wolfe, who manages our textile store, Cynthia McGowan and Catherine Elliott, our two M.A.s, and Lisa Galvin who has helped me curate the exhibition. Then there’s the team from Exhibitions: the brilliant Peter McDermid and Paul Goodhead who create the narrative feel and the striking graphics for the show. Last but not least there’s the interpretation team from LV&A, Jane Batty and Iona Keen, who edit and polish up my text. In the end, though, our job is simply to portray as best we can the artistry, power, humour and breathtaking visual impact of these remarkable works from Africa.

African textiles today: social fabric of the east and south is a free exhibition at the British Museum which runs from 14^th February – 21^st April 2013. African Textiles Today, by Chris Spring, is published by the British Museum Press and is available on the British Museum shop website.