Spirited objects: Lobi art in West Africa and beyond

In this dissertation, I analyze the form, function, and context for Lobi figure sculpture in and beyond West Africa in order to examine the disciplinary tension between anthropological and avant-garde approaches to African art. Anthropological approaches examine the object in its African context in order to reveal artistic meaning and significance. Avant-gardist scholars argue that African art belongs in a global context where it can speak for itself and is open to universal interpretations.

In order to engage this dialectical tension productively, I begin my dissertation with a close look at three meanings of “Lobi.” First as a French colonial blanket-term, which covers seven separate culture groups in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Second, as an anthropological term applied to participants in Joro, a pan-ethnic initiation ceremony established in the same region around 1870. Third, as a pure ethnic identity, as in the “Lobi proper.”

I examine these identity politics surrounding the term Lobi first in relation to what Daniela Bognolo calls “the three major archetypal style forms” in Lobi figure sculpture that pre-date Joro, and second, to thilkotina (ancestor figures), which have “had a significant influence on the stylistic development” of Lobi sculpture. Accordingly, I evaluate literature on Joro and objects used within it, and I share my observations of Lobi shrine figures in Burkina Faso and in European and American art collections. I conclude that without more detailed case studies on Lobi figures in African shrines, art collections, and the global market, theories on artistic origins and stylistic development remain speculative.