Click on thumbnails
These pictures come from the following
books :
- Catherine Clément, "Afrique
Esclave", Ed. Noésis - 1999
- Michel Renaudeau, "Sénégal",
Ed. Richer-Hoaqui - 1995
An anthropologic glance
through the Suwer painting.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
We can trace the origin of glass painting
in the most ancient cultures, since we have
knowledge of its practice among the Romans,
the Byzantine Empire, through the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance and the whole west
European modern history until the XVIIth
and XVIIIth centuries, including classic
China. Nevertheless, it is its filiation
of strong roots in the Islamic world, in
the Mediterranean Sea, from Al-Andalus up
to the Far East, what we are interested
in, due to its wide diffusion as way of
iconographic transmission.
It is at the end of the XIXth century,
while this laborious and former way of image
reproduction is being replaced by modern
technologies of impression, such as chromo-lithography,
when the glass painting copying of coranic
votive images spreads over the Muslim world.
It was also during those years, when in
the territories south of the Senegal river
(where Islamization had already taken big
steps since the XIth century conversion
to Islam of War Jabí, king of the
Tékrour empire), the first religious
brotherhoods of Sufi influence appear. Arriving
from the Mahgreb, those religious leaders
will leave behind the direct confrontation
with the colony (Jihad) and would cooperate
from then on with the French authorities
in the overthrowing of the last local monarchies
as well as in the development of the extensive
cultivation facilities, achieving government
by means of agreements and mutual religious
respect.
In the mean time, the naval imports of
coranic colour images from Mecca, Tunis
and Morocco by those who sailed back from
pilgrimage, mainly by those settled merchants
in former capital St. Louis and in the recently
founded city of Dakar, will directly confront
the Christian interests of the French colonial
authorities. Arriving at the situation that,
worried by the negative influence that the
above mentioned images might drive between
the population during the years to come,
while the fight for the prevailing religion
is about to be decided, Governor William
Ponty, contravening the liberty of speech
guaranteed by the French Constitution in
all francophone territories, banned, in
1908, any free Islamic propaganda.
In that context, the glass painting technique
is being used whether to frame familiar
photographic portraits on paper or those
imported colour stamps from the Islamic
iconography. Normally a stamp or daguerreotype
adheres to the centre rear part of the glass
and this adorned with floral motifs or exotic
birds, turning out an attractive panel to
hang on the wall, giving a certain prestige
to whichever home wall. Facing the ban,
this is a crucial moment for the development
of “Suwer” painting.
The best job for those who could paint would
be glass painting. They were the artists
who painted the first anonymous glasses
found today hanging in world museums. Since
colour reproduction on paper was known but
too controlled, popular inventiveness discovered
the endless possibilities of this old way
of limitless copying, suitable for the spreading
of their highly valued coranic images. From
this moment on, due to the short supply
of postcards, artists will relentlessly
paint these colour images on glass copying
from the very rare originals, answering
the demand on iconographic repertoires susceptible
to being read, understood and remembered
by the illiterate local population. The
conditions caused by censorship favoured
and launched its later diffusion.
In Senegal they call it "fixé”
painting, fixed to the crystal, or by “suwer"
from the French expression "sous-verre"
(under the glass), and it is not unusual
for the artist to work from an order, establishing
a direct relation between artist and client.
This circumstance, along with its unmistakable
urban character, and the fact that, at the
crucial moment of its diffusion, it is a
commodity produced by a subversive social
movement, challenging and critical against
the established power, also together with
the fact that it addresses a popular audience
who already knows the represented facts
and can interpret them, throws up this particularly
Senegalese plastic expression, a part of
the African Popular Art current of the XX
C, although it is certainly well advanced
in time, and consequently being included
in all studies and anthologies on the topic?.
The appearance of tourist Afro-kitch and
the fact that these works on glass are simultaneously
on sale in the street flea-market and in
the private ateliers of the most prestigious
artists, in great exhibitions and expensive
antique dealers, can be contradictory and
complex for certain critics, who usually
ignore whole sectors of the Popular African
artistic production, but can be explained
if we consider how broad a contextual breach
the western art market produces, including
in the same bag whichever “artist”
producing tourist commodities, well recognized
masters, young promising artists taking
part in the latest exhibitions, daring to
consider “Naïf”
a technique which might be used in different
ways by any local artist working or not
on his cultural heritage. On the other hand,
would we dare to proceed in the same way
with any canvas painting in general?
During the first half of XXth century,
between a pleiad of anonymous painters,
we can see the rising of a number of suwerists
who would later be know as the masters:
Saliou Sarr, Balla Ndiaye, Ndiaye Lô,
Omar Moussé Gueye, Babacar Lô,
Gora Mbengue, Moudou Fall, Ibrahima Sall
and Mor Gueye. After the 50´s and
until end of the 60´s, painted glasses
would become less fashionable in town since
African independence movements, endorsed
by the philosophy of Négritude and
developed by intellectuals of international
relevance like Leopold Sedar Senghor or
Aimèe Cesaire supports a modernization
and renovation on the plastic arts that
stands on new aesthetics. Senegalese society,
living a recent and hopeful independence,
is decided and ready to modernize itself.
This new situation found its later balance
after the 80´s, with the appearance
of a new generation of suwerists who will
leave behind the classic and conservative
aesthetics of the old painters and will
look for new forms of expression in the
transparent crystal. By this time, the Suwer
painting is already appreciated abroad.
Ink outlines will be lost, scratching and
cracking permitted, artists will enter in
a new world of Comic and abstract thinking,
and will experiment with influences from
abroad. They are called the “Set-Setal”
generation, artistic movement produced by
the economic recession and feeling of disappointment
prevailing in West Africa during the 70´s.
Among them, we can mention Mbida, Mallos,
Alexis Ngom, Azou Bade, Moussa Lô,
Paco, Moussa Johnson and Serigne Ndiaye.
TECHNIQUE AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
To begin with, the technique is always the
same, simple for those who know it, but
laborious and complex since no mistake is
permitted once a colour is shaded with the
next. The most common sizes for the plaques
are 24 x 33 cm and 33 x 48 cm. The thickness
of the glass is usually 2 mm although thicker
glasses can be taken for bigger sizes. Once
an image is chosen, a glass plate should
be placed on top and with a thin pen and
Indian ink, the designs outlined. Any signature,
dating or forewords should be now written
from right to left in a reverse mirror way.
Afterwards it is time to begin filling the
drawings beginning with the ones in first
shot, the details in front, and finishing
with the distant backgrounds, whether landscape
or neutral. The glass has been painted on
the reverse side from where we will see
it. Turning it upside down, it should only
be protected against breakage by placing
a piece of salvaged card on the back painted
side with a paper band frame. The glass
has no transparency any more, but the image
fixed on it has a newly translucent life
of a charming effect. Its own fragility
makes it even more precious.
Together with their undeniable narrative
and iconographic nature, the general characteristic
of these types of paintings are, since their
origins, the outlining of drawings with
Indian ink lines, the neutral backgrounds
with an only flat colour, the hieratic and
frontal characters, the absence of perspective
and volumes, the deliberate disproportion
depending on the importance of the character
depicted, all together with a certain imperfection
on the drawings. All these characteristic
do not imply that the artist has not mastered
the techniques of painting, however, they
maintain tradition in their task of preserving
and passing over generations some stories
and cultural uses that should never be lost,
repeating images just as a photographer
would do. With time and new demands, from
artists and clients, we shall see how pastel
colours will surge, gradually volumes, colour
degradations, perfect perspectives will
appear and, forgetting about ink, direct
painting with the colour on the plate will
bring abstraction and innovative designs
taken from the ambits of illustration and
comics. All these innovations come to show
us that the glass painting technique, far
from an irremovable tradition turns into
only one more support, as canvas could be,
where any artist has the possibility of
expressing his works.
THEMATIC
In the first studies and publication on
this artistic expression, it was already
obviously distinguishing between the religious
sacred and profane genres. If we can also
find devotional glasses in the Moslem world,
for instance in Tunis, we should remark
that the use of forewords or inscriptions
explaining the images is purely Senegalese,
and even more the using of profane topics,
expression of the sahelian syncretism.
Let us leave aside the profane genres to
focus, for a while, on the broad world of
Senegalese devotional Islamic sacred topics,
since it introduces some significant differences
with the rest of the so-called Islamic countries.
Firstly, we will be deeply shocked with
the disinhibited use of figurative art with
the human image, mostly saint, as the centre
of the plate. Although banished in Moslem
art in general this shows same peculiar
characteristics of Islamic beliefs among
western Africans, which, for example allows
any job helping parents bringing up their
families in a decent, laborious way. As
we have previously said, some of the most
prestigious Imam, here called the Marabouts,
arrived from the Mahgreb adapting the Revealed
Words of Koran to the local animistic beliefs,
obtaining a smoother and faster success.
The first brotherhoods were thus established,
in the way of Christian confraternities,
assembling groups of believers around each
Sufi descent faith, the mystical Islam practice.
We will introduce first the Mouride brotherhood,
founded by Cheikh Amadou Bamba (1850-1927),
who was initially trained in the Quadirí
mystic and finished his studies between
Mauritanian teachers. He is very frequently
represented while accomplishing the miracles
that made him a saint throughout his very
hazardous life. Always dressed in a white
Caftan covering his face, from a unique
photo taken around 1913, we see him at the
moment of being arrested by the colonial
troops, during his exile to Gabon praying
on the waves, surrounded by Archangels,
tempted by the devils (Djinn) or accompanied
by his first disciple, Cheikh Ibra Fall,
on the way to the sacred Mosque of Touba,
his burial place, where Mourides meet annually
on the celebration of the Great Magal. Very
frequent are, as well, the images of the
omnipresent Bay Fall, followers and renunciants,
who, with their patch-work dresses, their
pumpkin bowls, their maces and their entangled
hair braids, compose one of the most genuinely
Senegalese characters.
We should also mention the Tidyaan brotherhood
founded by El Hadj Malick Sy (1855-1922)
born in Algeria, he was also a student of
the Quadirí mystic. The iconography
normally presents him from a unique photo
as well in which he is protected by his
sunshade in front of the main mosque of
the brotherhood in Tivaouane.
For their peculiar identity, we shall also
quote the Layen brotherhood, founded by
Limamu Laye (1845-1919), fisherman of the
old Lebú ethnic group, original from
Cape Verde, who in 1883 lived a mystical
experience that forced him to spiritually
guide his seafaring comrades. He decided
to adapt the Islam to the local animistic
customs, away from any external influence,
and granting women with a greater participation
in religious practices, as they traditionally
had. Although he is counted for a long list
of miracles, adventures and episodes, the
glasses concerning this group are extremely
sober colour portraits of the founder or
their successors, including always a black
and white bird, seemingly dove, which like
a “celestial messenger”, matching
caftan and turbans, turns out to be the
symbol of this brotherhood. Mixing some
Islamic rites with ancient pagan, such as
prayers asking the sea for a better fishing
season, their practices are often regarded
as estrange from other Muslim points of
view. Their main mosque is in Camberene,
a site in the beaches of Yoff, coastline
territory occupied by the Lebú people
from the antiquity, fishermen whose members
almost exclusively compose the brotherhood.
The less numerous and more orthodox Senegalese
brotherhood is the mother of the two first
mentioned above and lies directly on the
original lessons of the Quadirí mystic.
Founded on XII century by Iraqi Abd El Quadir
El Jilani and spread as far as sahelian
territories by the Mauritanian Sheikh Sidiyya
El Kebir, but it does not have local representative.
The Arab founders of this old Sufi path
are represented frequently in glasses side
by side with the Marabouts from the other
brotherhoods.
Although at the beginning, coranic imagery
was the subject of numerous reproductions
(we have already seen how religious imported
religious postcards stuck to a glass plate
was in the origin of this technique), the
images of Al Boraq, the Prophet’s
winged feminine mount, the Battle of Badr
in 624, the sword fight of the brave Alí
against the ferocious Amr, and other images,
soon gave way to the portraits and narratives
of the Acts of the Marabouts from the senegalese
Brotherhoods. This new group of images did
nothing but build a new autochthonous collective
imagery simply updating the iconography
and episodes of miracles commonly attributed
to the saints in all traditions. The annual
pilgrimages to the holy places of Touba
and Tivaouane, the Bay Fall in their police
function on those events, with their traditional
features, the respectful individual or group
frontal portraits of the founders and their
descendants, also on road trips in luxurious
cars, the coranic schools with their young
untidy students (taalibé) using their
wooden writing boards, escape from realistic
representations and reveal us a suggestive
point of view of nothing but narrative and
votive utility that fulfils the same role
as modern Coptic Christian Ethiopian or
European Medieval iconography.
We should also quote the existence of a
traditional Christian based iconography
from the beginning up to the present time.
Since there was demand, the artists, whatever
their beliefs, had no ideological conflict
in scene depiction from other brotherhoods
or even from Christian heritage, like Noah’s
Arc (biblical episode accepted by the two
traditions), Nativity or Crucifixion.
PROFANE THEMATIC
As we have just seen, although the practice
of figurative with sacred images from the
Muslim world has been usual in colour lithography
and glass painting, in diverse moments and
places of history, the development of a
profane thematic is particular of the senegalese
idiosyncrasy. This endless imagery embraces
broad fields of daily life, history and
myths from the Senegal.
With an unique freshness and a powerful
sense of humour that easily catch our attention,
the glass painter provides wall decoration
not only from each family’s religious
brotherhood, but also producing wall portraits
and exemplary images to give a moralizing
advice with a self-criticism that frequently
borders on cynicism.
We consider an important group within the
profane glasses corpus to be the ones narrating
Histories, Legends and Myths. Among them
we should mention the images depicting the
heroes of the anti-colonial resistance,
like Lat Dior, last Damel (sovereign) of
Cayor, who opposed the construction of the
railroad linking Dakar to St. Louis; and
Kotya Barma, XVIIth century philosopher
famous for his proverbs, both are always
reproduced in the same way, on a powerful
war horse and armed with scimitars. The
glasses dedicated to relevant contemporary
personages are also frequent, like the already
mentioned president and poet Senghor. We
must also include here the plaques related
to old legends such as the world-wide well-known
image of the spirit, half woman, half serpent,
guardian of waters, Mammy Watta, or to the
admired and mythical, famous old champions
of the popular senegalese wrestling raised
to the Olympus of the great sportsmen.
The Suwer of burlesque type would form
a second big group. The painter, for the
satisfaction of the client, draws scenes
full of humour with an almost exclusively
hilarious intention. Among them we can count
those showing the haunted hunter, the wife
who finds her husband in bed with someone
else, the young girl who having a shower
is secretly observed, the co-spouses involved
in a fight while a goat takes advantage
of the food, the Car Rapid, or public transportation,
and other paintings.
Together with their burlesque character,
Suwer paintings show us some of the local
fables and exemplary proverbs. We must include
here the stories such as the arrest of the
thief, the tormented husband turned into
a heavily laden donkey due to his bad behaviour,
or the charming story of the women turned
into baobab trees. All images that would
permit people to judge inappropriate behaviour
according to the Muslim morality in this
region of Africa.
Maybe the most extensive group would be
formed by the images simply dedicated to
the illustration of daily life; an appreciation
exercise valuing the customs and way of
life in Western Africa. We must include
here the idyllic landscapes from the Casamance,
the postcards views, the bucolic scenes
of shepherds, the Sabar dancers, the music
bands, the couple ready for intimacy, the
relaxing women sitting while playing Wouré
(Mankala), the cross boarding of the Gambia
river, on the way to the south, the market
scenes, the family eating the Thieboudjen
(rice with vegetables and fish), or those
travelling all together on a bicycle. We
should include here as well the original
series that painter Mallos is lately doing
on the characters and occupations of modern
life in the city, with a clear didactic
intention and highly humoristic result,
they have had a very good acceptance. With
their yellow flat backgrounds, they remind
us of the comic stripe and have been very
easily copied and sold on the street walls
of Dakar.
There is also a very big group of Suwer
that simply produce portraits of people
or animals. Directly indebted to the origin
of Suwer painting, we have already seen
how the first photographic studios settled
in the former capital of St. Louis, (whether
the artist who run them was known or unknown),
used to do the portraits of the significant
ladies of town, alone or with their husbands,
in a show of prosperity. These are the very
same copies, which were adhered to the reverse
side of the glasses, and then decorated
around with flowers or birds. Then these
portraits were endlessly reproduced on glass
in a process in which the portrayed person
looses importance and the images gradually
turned into stereotypes of beauty, success
or elegance of easy reading for the population.
This is the case of the frontal portraits
of women (Diriyànke) with their beautiful
hairdos, jewels and suits, chosen in accordance
with the social position and the ethnic
group to which they belong. This includes
the famous “Signares”
from St. Louis and Gorée, women who
having married the colonialist foreigners
exercised their influence of power and wealth.
In the same group, but with much more photographic
studio’s pose, we have the couples
with their expensive suits, salacots, portfolios
and jewels, which stand as conjugal happiness
stereotypes. The domestic and wild animals
are also common. From the old hens and roosters
painted by Gora Mbengue, through the big
rams alluding to Abraham’s sacrifice
and the yearly Muslim celebration of Tabaski,
to the exotic birds, elephants and giraffes,
ancient game, any painter will be pleased
to grant a familiar order from photo portrait
of the children, for instance. We should
not ignore here Mbida´s series on
famous female singers. Dressed with carefully
painted clothes and playing a musical instrument,
they stand as stereotypes of Beauty, in
abstract, since uniting feminine beauty
to the sound of an instrument, results a
summary for the artist’s intentions.
All of them show neutral black backgrounds,
giving only importance to the meaning of
the painting.
In a remarkable exception, we are remind
here a series of glasses which deal with
the sadly remembered story of slavery. And
it is an exception, because we do not find
that sense of humour and optimism that is
so usual in all other themes reproduced
in Suwer painting. Artists try to keep alive
a history and a past that although cruel
and painful, does not have to be forgotten.
We can see how this dramatic subject is
seriously treated and through it, we are
confronted with a brutal and crude reality.
In such plates made by artists like Gora
Mbengue and Mor Gueye, we can observe not
only the European greediness in the lucrative
transatlantic commerce but also the local
social system reigning in the old kingdoms
of the Sahel, which permitted any local
chief in need of foreign goods to hunt,
torture and sell their own people to the
incoming boats. Cheikh Anta Diop´s
anthropological studies have explained to
us how these old social structures historically
descend from the ancient African monarchies,
like the empire of the Mali, and all of
them as well from the great Egyptian civilization,
and that in those regimes slaves were not
despised, but they even had a political
role in the monarchic government. But today’s
African artists prefer to make an exercise
of tolerance and either supported by the
Islam or Christianity they profess, fight
against these inadmissible practices which
even today are difficult to erase.
The most common of all images dedicated
to slavery is, perhaps, the reproduction
of the front inner patio of the famous "Maison
des Eclaves" (slave house) of Gorèe,
with its double curved stairs and its two
antagonistic floors or worlds, downstairs
for prisoners, waiting for their trip to
nowhere, upstairs for the traders and garrison,
who could bear such children moaning and
men and women suffering for years. There
are also glasses reproducing other scenes
such as torturing, chaining, caravanning
and commercial exchange.
BEYOND THE SUWER
Up to this point, we have seen a broad panorama
over the Suwer painting and from now on,
we will attempt an optimistic forecast of
the coming future and the survival of these
techniques. In the first place, we must
point out that we have consciously left
aside those innovative works that resists
tradition, such as those that seem to be
searching for originality. Let us give the
example of Fruit Woman by Moussa Johnson,
Zulú Queen by Azou Bade or the floating
Dolls by André Dolly, which could
well be found in the pages of a western
comic. Its poor narrative value is quickly
balanced by the people’s free and
spontaneous reading. For some artists, who
have previously admitted the narrow relationship
between Suwer painting and Comic illustration
it is the answer to the new challenges of
expression. We can see cases where the stereotypes
on feminine beauty shown on frontal portraits,
are no longer a representation of reality
but a comic design, where the features can
be exaggerated, as happens with the women’s
faces by Azou Bade. There are other plates
narrating different scenes within the same
sequence, like episodes, in a single image.
A very well known technique for designers.
In reference to comics and illustration,
we should not silence here the demand for
direct copies of the worldly famous Tintin
that painters would reproduce for economic
reasons. Same as all those football team’s
gussets, postcards or views displayed on
streets walls all over Dakar. This fact
comes to show to what extent the artists
are opened to foreign influences although
mainly for commercial reasons. This direction
in Suwer painting has very often been denied
and criticised by large numbers of artists
and critics who consider only Senegalese
thematic appropriate for suwerist tradition
and such practices an unacceptable concession
against creative purity.
There are plenty of artists obtaining unexpected
results painting directly onto the glass
with wide brushes, giving the appearance
of watercolour on paper, like Abdoulaye
Diaoune. And what to say about artists like
Moussa Sakho, sculptor for whom the painted
glass, far from being the centre of his
work, is only a true added value, something
popular and of his own, just like his old
grandmother’s photo. In his work a
painted plate is always worth of framing
and turned into “Sculpture with
Suwer” because similar to the
old photos that are no longer artist’s
property but collective cultural property,
his “fixé” are
artistic tradition’s, are “a
fixé” and “whatever
fixé” at the same time.
Still further, reach painters like Germaine
Anta Gaye, Sea Diallo or Serigne Ndiaye
with their abstractions, their new treatment
on pictorial matter, and personal works
certainly under western influences, but
without resigning their African origins.
How could we deny their right in doing so
if we have always done the same?
Through different public exhibitions, we
are truly aware of the reliance relationship
between this painting tradition and photography.
Its outstanding literary character seems
a little forgotten by criticism. If there
is something clear, it is only literature
that brings up Suwer painting.
Semiologists of renown like Humberto Eco
discussed literary values of the comic as
a means of figurative narration or drawn
literature gaining authenticity in academic
status from a previous “second
degree” art expression. In his
hands, we should read the work of Senegalese
Suwerists. Even more if we are curious enough
to investigate in the literary traditions
of western African peoples like Wolof, Serer,
Peul, and Djola with no written support
for literary pieces until the first structuralist
studies were made on the syntaxes of their
languages, once in the 20th Century.
The non-existence of writing is a fact
but it does not question the existence of
literary pieces or tradition. Whatever group
of people should always guard their past
and only ignorance can forget oral tradition’s
importance in the transition of information.
In many African cultures, tradition, stories
and legends are still passed forward today
through an oral text from everybody’s
lips. Particularly in Griot´s lips.
A respected elder, member of a very old
inherited caste, during the evenings he
sits around the fire with all dwellers in
the small rural village and lights up their
imagination with magic stories, fairy tales
and nostalgic melodies, repeated thousand
of times, guardians of an ancient literary
tradition. Their role is to keep alive of
all lawsuits, agreements or disputes from
the past along with the memories of old
relevant characters in the history of each
ethnic group or village.
However, this purely rural tradition was
missing in West African conurbations where
the immigrant added to his homeland nostalgia,
the lack of any roots or tradition that
might link him to any familiar culture.
Since written literature did not exist in
Western Africa during the end of 19th Century,
Suwer painting came in to fill out that
urban space that the Griots could not take
on concrete. This is the right time and
place where the suwerist painter comes into
scene. He perfectly fits in griot´s
gloves. Painter and Griot are the ones in
charge of maintaining a corpus of images,
stories and narratives of extreme importance
for the people. They are in charge of providing
the necessary rhetorical figures, language
and style for transmission. They are depositary
of a codified lexicon of broad acceptance
as a mean of communication and even more
important, as a way of social cohesion.
All sources of inspiration in Suwer painting
come by force from the oral tradition. Any
objection from those who are not acquainted
with this tradition when the continuous
repetition of images is recorded in different
ateliers and by different artists is easily
suppressed when they comprehend that the
Griot´s or Suwerist´s main business
is neither innovation nor invention, but
the true important transition of traditions
and customs that otherwise would be unfortunately
lost. And with them the underestimated wealth
provided by diversity. We have been using
so many words related to literature, such
as tale, myth, legend, always pointing out
the strong textual power and cultural basis
of these paintings that we must find a new
higher value for African cultures previously
denied in Western Europe.
With solid origins coming from photographic
studios and colour lithographies from the
old Dakarasse bookstores, influences and
language taken from comic designs and illustration,
true literary transmitters of customs and
popular legends, the Suwer painting is not
an orphan in traditions among the plastic
arts. It is, therefore, very unlikely that
an artistic expression with an actual support,
such as the fragile glass, with so ample
a cultural and literary endorsement, with
an evident dynamism and an increasing demand
again, can fall into oblivion or lacks a
promising future. The support has arrived
from the academic world, with a number of
critical studies. Magazines and books on
African Contemporary Art always include
them between their chapters. The organizers
of the Dak´Art Biennale have been
presenting exhibitions on Suwer for at least
four editions, including those artistic
expressions into Senegalese plastic arts
movements and as artistic demonstration
of the cultural legacy, sitting suwerists
side by side with other artists whose practices
are on canvas or sculptures in the Elysian
temple of the fine arts.
During the last Biennale Dak´Art
2002, all efforts have been added to pay
homage to the great Gora Mbengue with a
magnificent and surprising exhibition, although
a bigger retrospective and a full study
and cataloguing of his works is yet to be
done.
For all the above reasons, we recognise
the value of Suwer painting as a perfect
way of spreading culture of the greatest
importance, able to capture the idiosyncrasy
of a people with original and centennial
customs, rewriting it all in an easily read
way, not only for those addressed, but also
to the western eyes. Clear enough to introduce
us into a world of peculiar charms and vehicle
that will let us measure a rich culture
for those who would like their glance enhanced,
their reality improved, with other artistic
expressions also from our world.
Luis Temboury.
Málaga, July 2003.
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