Senegalese sculptor who captured the energy of people resisting oppression.
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| Ousmane Sow with Massai Warrior |
In many respects this is a sea-change in Art. What Ousmane Sow is
explaining is that ancient Yoruba and Mali methods of sculpture are
superior to those from Europe as they have more flexibility. Some of his
later original sculptures are impossible to replicate in bronze or gold
as the medium is too heavy and restrictive to display what is
physically possible in sculpture. Sometimes the primitive is superior to
what is considered by many to be civilized.
The controversial African artist, Senegalese sculptor,
Ousmane Sow, has died at the age of 81. Sow worked continuously as an Artist;
as a child growing up in Dakar he made action figures
which he shared with his friends and used to make up elaborate fictional
stories. He worked on model-making and animations in Paris for decades, even
turning his physiotherapy office into his studio. He produced a short 16mm film
about a group of flamboyant extraterrestrials visiting planet earth, but his
career only started once he had returned to Africa and settled back into his
beloved Dakar, in his early 50’s. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s Sow produced
an immense body of work using African materials and techniques. His first major
success came with his larger-than-life sculptures of the Nubian Sudanese
Wrestlers, at the French Cultural Centre in Dakar in 1987.
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| Massai Series |
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| Zulu Series |
Next came the Maasia, from Kenya and Tanzania exploring
their exceptional hunting ability and their connection with the wilderness of
the Serengeti and then the Zulu warriors from Kwzulu-Natal, South Africa and
their strength and unity as one of the most resilient tribes in Africa.
Last in this initial series, he explored the stunning beauty found in nomadic, Islamic Fulani
people from the Sahel and West Africa, whose features are akin with those found
in the Middle Eastern with their golden brown skins. The Nubian Series was an
anthropological exercise by the artist and a broad look at the different
varieties of peoples to be found on the Continent of Africa.
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| Fulani Series |
Stirred by the
German filmmaker, Leni
Riefenstahl and her photographic
books on
the Nuba and the people of Kau from the Sudan. A series of images known
as Mein
Afrika was translated in 1982 into English and renamed, Vanishing
Africa. To Sow, it seemed rather perverse for a German film-maker, that
not only supported but created propaganda for Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party,
should be the artist to record the lives of Africans. Ambitiously he took on the vital role as an
African anthropologist and quietly, and methodically decided to chronicle the multiplicity of Africa using ancient and modern
African sculptural techniques and finally permitting an African perspective on African people. Over several years he created a series of huge sculptures exposing the diversity
of the Continent.
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| Nubian Wrestlers |
The naked wrestlers were quite shocking when first shown
outside the French Cultural Centre in the Muslim city of Dakar. Their presence
and majestic dominance won the artist great acclaim and by 1993 Sow was
selected for Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and the Venice Biennale two years
later. Cosmic success followed and the public's response to Sow's works were
more like fans at a rock concert or cinema-lovers watching their favourite
movies from their best Directors. The works seemed to take on a life of their
own and the reactions were deeply private and affected each person differently.
In 1998 he took on his greatest challenge, the Americans and created, what many
consider his Masterpieces, 35 works in his American Indians series, a few he
placed on horseback, some with guns others with bows and arrows, all fighting
for victory against General Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.
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| Mother and Child |
Born in 1935, Sow grew up in the vibrant neighbourhood of
Reubeuss in Dakar. He was raised by his disciplinarian father, Moctar and his
robust St. Louis mother, Nafi N’Diaye. At the age of 7 he attended a French
Lycée and obediently practiced Islam after school and at the weekends. Later,
whilst in France, he found solace in meditation and Hinduism with a profound
belief in reincarnation. In the home that he built in Dakar he made the best
room in the house his meditation room.
His interest in sculpture was evident from a young age. In
his teens he explored different formulas with glues and melted materials to
build up various figurines. In 1957, after the death of his Father, Sow decided
to leave Dakar, even though he was penniless. Senegal at that time was a Colony
of France and as a member of one of the French Departments Sow was a French
Citizen. The artist’s attitude towards life is remembered by a conversation
with the French journalist, Marie-Odile Briot. In his childhood when asked if
he could catch the moon he jumped out of bed, put on his slippers and gave it
his best shot.
Once in France, Sow found temporary accommodation in
assorted police stations around Paris and gradually picked up fleeting jobs in
order to get by. Having an interest in the human body he attended a course on
massage, which earned him a diploma in nursing from Laennec Hospital. He then
went on to study with Boris Dolto, a pioneer in orthopaedics and kinesiology
therapy in France. His professional skills as a physiotherapist provided
financial stability but also the essential understanding and working knowledge
of the human body, which became so invaluable in his later life.
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| Battle of Little Big Horn |
Sow was a Master of exaggeration with a fundamental
understanding of the human analytic anatomy. He was able to delve into his
familiarity with restful muscles as opposed to those that contort. In many
respects this artist was an enigma who found extraordinary global acclaim. His
meteoric rise came out of nowhere but Sow had been patiently working on ideas
since first showing his bas-relief entitled, Head of a Moor at the World
Festival of Black Arts (FESMAN) in 1966. His works are authentically African
taken from the different sculptural techniques from West Africa specifically,
from the Nok artisans of Ife, Nigeria. Sow sculpted without a model and rarely
made sketches. The secret to his success lies in the alchemy of his handmade
medium, a number of highly prized ingredients such as red soil, sand, mother of
vinegar and other confidential matter were placed into barrels, turned into
pulp and left to brew over time. The whole process is an art form in itself,
which gave the Artist as much pleasure as the creation of his massive
sculptures. Once the models were dressed and stuffed he applied by hand, his
mysterious toxic recipe onto a framework of metal, straw and jute, allowing
nature to do her magic and giving the medium its own freedom to harden under
the hot Dakar sun. This approach is inherently artistic, but also deeply rooted
in Africa. In the first phase of his work, the Nubian Series, the gargantuan
figures come across as rather harsh, the sculptures are smooth, solid and
tense; their postures rigid and inflexible... almost obstinate. What is so
impressive is that for the first time, we see an African Artist playing
anthropologist, not only does he magnify those from the Continent but does so
with ancient African traditional forms of sculpture that date back to the 11th Century.
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| Battle of Little Big Horn |
In the second phase of his artistic life, Sow’s techniques
changed slightly and in the Battle of Little Bighorn | The American Effect at
the Whitney Museum in 2003 we see far rougher, coarser and more ambitious works
on display. The figures are daring in their colour and Sow left holes in the
frameworks and using his new burnt technique, was able to make the sculptures
more malleable and dramatic. The grey matter on the horses comes from melting
pieces of coloured plastics which create a remarkable finish. The end result is
a magnificent production of 11 horses and 24 human figures in incredible
positions never before seen. This gained Sow the reputation as one of the
greatest sculptors of all time.
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| Ousmane Sow | Le Pont Des Arts |
In the spring of 1999 at the invitation of Paris City Hall,
the artist exhibited one of the most spectacular events in living
memory, at le
pont des Arts. The show attracted over three million visitors and the
French
media even warned that the influx of so many spectators would undermine
the
integrity of the bridge itself. The exhibition included seventy-five of
Sow's colossal works featuring members of the Nubian Series, his
American
Indians and various iconic figures. These awe-inspiring works were on
display
between the Louvre and the Académie Francaise. This was an impressive
show of
epic proportions, which won the artist adoration and admiration from the
French
public.
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| Dancer with the short hair |
After his successful 1999 exhibition, he began using a bronze foundry to
cast some
of his earlier works. The finest of which is Dancer with the Short
Hair. In the remote Kordofan region, in the south of Sudan, where the
Nuba live, young virgins dance the myertum, the "dance of love".
The young dancers smear their bodies
with black or red earth to make themselves appear more athletic and
desirable. They perform a special playful seductive dance for the
victorious wrestlers, who sit in a circle,
their eyes lowered out of respect, after the annual ceremonial
combat. Bronze is the perfect medium for this stunning Masterpiece,
with its dark, shimmering quality and its refined finish, it is able
to flawlessly replicate the natural beauty of the Dancer with Short
Hair.
On 11th April 2012 Sow was elected to become a Membre
Associé Etranger ("foreign associate member") of the Académie des
Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, replacing the American artist, Andrew
Wyeth. He became the first African artist ever to be elected for membership.
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| Toussaint L’Ouverture and
the Old Slave |
In the same year his sculpture “Toussaint L’Ouverture and
the Old Slave” was the centrepiece at African Mosaic at the National
Museum
of African Art in Washington. This work was acquired by the Museum and
featured in the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution, the work
celebrates Toussaint L'Ouverture who led a slave revolt in Haiti from 21 August 1791 to 1 January 1804.
His final work, The Peasant, a commission from the office of the
President of Senegal. The work is to be
cast in bronze and installed in front of the Abdou Diouf International
Conference Center in Diamniadio, near Dakar. Ousmane Sow completed his
last work just one month before he died. His incredible legacy is
assured and his commitment to all things Africa will certainly go down
in the African Art History books of tomorrow.
Ousmane Sow born 10th October 1935 to
1st December 2016 | He leaves behind a new generation of impressive
sculptors from Senegal: Seni Awa Camara, N’Dary Lo, Mamady Seydi, Cheikhou Bâ, Henry Sagna and Abdala Faye.
