"Blick nach Afrika", Coffins from Ghana, Museum for Sepulchral culture, Kassel,

21.02. – 18.04.1999

[Paa Joe]    [Kane Kwei 1922 – 1992]

Fürther Nachrichten, 1999, REGINA URBAN

African art goes on tour

Design coffins from the collection of Bernd Kleine-Gunk are exhibited in the Museum of Sepulchral culture in Kassel

A shoe-coffin for the cobbler: ZAK gallery co-director John Hammond with four design coffins by Paa Joe that are going to be transported to Kassel at the weekend. Photo: Winckler



They look like large colourful wood sculptures: A fish, a giant black shoe, a giant onion, a Magnum-Beer bottle. In fact, they are also sculptures, but they also have the function of coffins. What at first glance seems macabre is in the African Ghana a quite serious part of a dignified burial ritual. With what a person had earned respect and wealth in the lifetime, should also be shown in his or her coffin.

A larger selection of this design coffins has the doctor from Fürth and collector of African Art Bernd Kleine-Gunk currently housed in the ZAK Gallery. However, the gallery is this time only logistical station before being transported by truck to Kassel. There, the probably biggest pieces of Kleine-Gunk's collection will be exhibited in the Museum for Sepulchral culture, starting 21 February - the world's only museum that exclusively is devoted for the subject areas dying, death, burial and remembrance.

Among the coffins that will be transported on the weekend, there are also two from the father of this very original art form - by Kane Kwei. The trained carpenter, who in 1992 in the Ghanaian fishing village Teshie died, is now also considered by art historians as the creator of a new functional art in Africa. Although he made use of African traditions - figurative coffins are made on the African continent for centuries - its completely realistic reproduction of natural and industrial objects meant a break with tradition.

Syringe for the doctor

Today sons and nephews of Kwei making the design-coffins, for which a Ghanaian farmer almost one year's salary, has to sacrifice. In addition to the two coffins by Kane Kwei are all further coffins in Kleine-Gunk's collection by Paa Joe, including coffins in the shape of a syringe for the doctor, a uterus for the gynecologist or a lobster for the fisherman.

Western eyes have to get used to. Some may find these realistic coffins as too mundane, but for the Ghanaians the hope for a good journey into the afterlife and of a well-being corresponding with the earthly existence in the other world conjoins with this very direct access to that with which the deceased had made his fortune in this world.

In Kassel, from 21 February, one can see also elsewhere African art from Kleine-Gunk's collection. The gallery Bittner & Dembinski (Wolfsschlucht 17, near the stairs-street of the documenta-premises) will show titled "Blick nach Africa" works by Abdallah Salim, Chéri Samba, Bernard Matemera and other artists that were already represented in Gallery ZAK in Fürth.