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Art historians who organize exhibitions are constructing a framework for viewers to respond to art works. Obviously, the framework is physical, made of painted walls and display cases, lighting systems and printed captions. However, the framework is also conceptual, as the presentation, placement, and juxtaposition of art works create a narrative.1 In some cases, these conceptual frameworks are built upon centuries of solid scholarship and are butressed by the contributions of dozens of specialists. In other cases, however, frameworks are more precariously balanced upon fragmentary sources, and only a handful of scholars have provided materials to support the structure. As I plan an exhibition of the art of the Lagoon peoples and their neighbors in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana,21 am uncomfortably aware that the second description applies to my project.3 Yet simply because each component of this slender structure must be so carefully examined and tested during the construction process, the resulting framework is creating some unexpected views. One strikingly new set of frames presents arts from this region as products of the twentieth century. This paper will explain why the exhibit's categorization of Lagoon works as "twentieth century African art" is a reassessment of the ways African art has been viewed in the past, and why the inclusion of the full range of art works produced by twentieth century Lagoon artists will be both controversial and provocative.4
As an initial caveat, I must note that some types of Lagoon arts have clearly been made for periods spanning hundreds of years. These include funerary terracottas. Heads unearthed in archaeological excavations in the lands of one Lagoon group, the Eotile (Vetre) people, have been dated to the seventeenth century (Polet 1987). Even though two authorities have presented these terracottas as Akan responses to the arrival of European religious statuary on the coast (see Polet 2001), I believe that the Lagoon images are more plausibly connected to earlier traditions of fired clay images produced much further inland and may thus draw upon practices begun prior to European contact. Like their Anyi/Aowin neighbors, Lagoon potters in the Akye (Attie), Gwa (M'Batto), and Esuma (Assini) regions continued to make funerary images in clay until the twentieth century (Soppelsa 1982, Coronel 1978), even though the practice has now been abandoned...