Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

ut as functional objects. For example, Ghanaian gold weights, while intricately and delicately zoomorphic
or rendered in purely abstract forms, are subject to mutilation if they are too heavy or their form somehow
inhibits their use. 7
Another difference between the African aesthetic and the Western aesthetic directly concerns the
conveyance of ideas visually. While there are many examples of symbolic use of color or form in Western
art, African art objects communicate on a multiplicity of levels. Different combinations of color, pattern,
and form create almost an entirely new language –using the example of the Ghanaian gold weights again, a
weight shaped in the form of two crocodiles that share a belly explicitly indicate an entire proverb: “Those
who share a stomach and still fight over food are foolish.” 8 Similarly, each individual symbol on Ghanaian
adinkra cloth can be “read” as a complete thought unto itself.
These differences in viewing art objects (and even the use of the word “art”) are indications that a
lack of cultural understanding and, ultimately, a bias towards Western aesthetic theory.
To test this hypothesis, I constructed a survey that revolved around the image of the mysterious
African mask in the Augustana Kathy Bulucous Memorial Collection (see figure 1) to determine whether or
not Western perception of an object is altered by the qualifier “African.”
Part of the rationale for using this mask as the subject of the survey is that its ambiguity offers a
degree of control that might not be as possible with a more well-known, stereotypically “African” mask, as
my survey was administered in two different formats. The control format explicitly informed the
participants of this mask’s African origin and that it is indeed a mask, whereas the experimental format
referred to the mask as an object only and made no reference to origin. Had I been using a more wellknown
mask, I might not have been guaranteed that the experimental survey group had no indication of
origin.
I determined that I would be surveying Augustana students, which greatly narrowed my
demographic and thus my variables. The Augustana student body is comprised of predominantly white 18-
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