Hanart TZ Gallery in collaboration with Ernie Wolfe Gallery
漢雅軒與Ernie Wolfe Gallery協辦

Exhibition Title:
KUNG FU IN AFRICA: Golden Age Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999)
功夫狂想：非洲手繪電影海報黃金時期（加納 1985-1999）

Muslim 《少林搭棚大師》 Return to the 36th Chamber of Shaolin 1994 油彩畫布  Oil on canvas 190.5 x 111.7 cm Image Courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery

Hanart TZ Gallery and Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles are pleased to present ‘KUNG FU IN AFRICA: Golden Age Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999)’, a selection of 32 of the most outstanding examples of the unique genre of hand-painted movie posters by master African artisan-painters from Ghana, curated by Los Angeles-based specialist Ernie Wolfe III.

The exhibition, which opens on 11 March 2016 at Hanart TZ Gallery, features the work of Joe Mensah, Leonardo, Death is Wonder, Alex Nkrumah Boateng, D.A. Jasper, Stoger, Bright Obeng, Gilbert Forson, Samuel, Dan Nyenkumah, Africatta, Babs, Muslim.

This exhibition presents a rare and singular perspective on China through these artists’ interpretations of martial arts as both an aesthetic language and a dynamic life force. The pan-humanic appeal of martial arts is embodied in the wonderfully diverse yet thematically linked images created by these artists in a unique kind of folk-pop style, focused on the activity of Kung Fu. Through the martial arts film industry, which began in Hong Kong in the 1970s with famed production houses like the Shaw Brothers, Kung Fu cinema became a worldwide phenomenon—reaching even audiences in rural Ghana. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Gordon Liu, all became celebrities to African audiences with their star performances in martial arts movies.

Children frolic near an in-situ hand-painted movie poster by the artist Leonardo, beckoning customers to stop and see Jackie Chan in his kung fu movie ‘First Strike’. Winneba, Cape Coast region, Ghana, mid-1990s. Photograph by Ernie Wolfe III. Image Courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery

Curatorial Essay

KUNG FU IN AFRICA: Back Home In Hong Kong

Ernie Wolfe III

Starting in about 1985, and continuing until just before the millennium, there existed a ‘Golden Age’ of hand-painted, imagination-driven movie posters in Ghana. This was a time when market forces from abroad were minimal and these unique and exotic paintings were created solely for the local Ghanaian movie-viewing audience. The best and brightest artists of a generation competed fiercely and directly in the public eye to produce this exciting new work, being careful to sign and date the great majority of their paintings. Their hand-made artistry stood its ground against the inevitable tide of printing technology that globalization thrust upon them, and for a short while, they carved out a small oasis in time, where man actually won out over machines.

Stoger 《我是誰》 Who Am I 1999 油彩 畫布 Oil on canvas 160 x 111.7 cm Image Courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery

Samuel 《老虎出更》 Tiger on the Beat 1996 油彩 畫布 Oil on canvas 172.7 x 116.8 cm Image Courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery

Cinema from abroad was brought to the back roads and byways of Ghana with the help of bus-riding, road-warrior entrepreneurs, and a mobile cinema tradition was born. In the early years, a big city distributor or his aide would roll into town with a portable gas-powered generator, a 20” TV monitor, speakers, a VCR, and stunning, hand-painted movie posters and begin the local version of a movie marathon. By day, this would generally occur within the confines of a family home or possibly some small communal meeting centre; by night, in the open air. Later on the movies might be seen in the context of a video club. Painted on cloth, often on recycled flour sacks, rolled up on a stick or dowel for ease of transportation and as a counterweight when unfurled at the roadside, these early painted movie posters are the physical vestiges of this now obsolete art form, created for high visibility and mobility, unique in all of Africa to Ghana.

KUNG FU IN AFRICA presents a carefully curated selection of 32 of the most outstanding examples of these hand-painted Golden Age movie posters, by 13 largely self-taught master artisan painters from Ghana, each with his own distinctive voice and style. This exhibition presents a rare and singular perspective on China through the artists’ interpretations of martial arts as both an aesthetic language and a dynamic life force. The pan-humanic appeal of martial arts is embodied in their wonderfully diverse yet thematically linked images, which focus on the activity of kung fu. Through the martial arts film industry that began in Hong Kong in the 1970s with famed production houses like the Shaw Brothers, kung fu cinema became a worldwide phenomenon—reaching even to audiences in rural Ghana. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Gordon Liu, all became celebrities to African audiences with their star performances in martial arts movies.

These movie poster paintings, representing what can be described as an African folk-pop style, emerged during a decade in which globalization in the specific form of martial arts movies brought the opportunity to these talented Ghanaian painters to celebrate heroes whose worlds were completely different from their own, and conceivable only through the medium of film. What is more, this was a direct Hong Kong-to-Africa transmission, without any kind of Western filtering.

I consider these Golden Age movie posters to be the visual equivalent of neon signage, but without the benefit of electricity. Whether viewed from a passing bus, through swirling dust at forty miles per hour, or studied from a distance of five feet on the side of the road, the imagery in these posters is undeniably arresting. Not uncommonly, these early Golden Age posters were filled with fantastical images that went far beyond anything actually depicted in the movie itself.

A portable gasoline-powered generator purrs and puffs smoke as it powers a VCR and TV monitor in a small video club. Near Cape Coast, Ghana, 1998. Photograph by Ernie Wolfe III. Image Courtesy of Ernie Wolfe Gallery

Many of the Golden Age artists considered it unnecessary to see a particular film before creating their imagination-driven, idiosyncratic images. These colourful, highly stylized poster paintings were known locally as ‘crowd-pullers’, and sometimes were inspired solely by the artists’ accumulated knowledge of the leading actor, or by their own interpretation of the subject of the film, or even just by its vibe. Thus the artists’ imagination, rather than the movie itself, became the driving force behind their imagery. Their pride of creation is underscored by the inclusion of dates and signatures on the great majority of even the earliest movie poster paintings.

The reign of this group of Golden Age artists ended quite precipitously in the late 1990s, when their hand-painted poster monopoly was challenged by competing technologies brought to Ghana in the wake of increasing globalization. It did not take long for the proliferation of ephemera in the form of cheaper, smaller, offset-printed paper posters to replace them. People were eager to go to the movies and ultimately an absolute minimum of visual agitation was necessary to lure them in. The Ghanaian public would gladly see nearly any movie rather than the alternative, which might be just another night watching the sunset through the mango trees.

I am very interested in the intercultural conversations generated by these images of Chinese martial arts films painted by Ghanaian artists for their local audience. It is unlikely that the Chinese film makers ever intended or imagined that their films would be seen in Ghana; or that these artists in Ghana ever considered that not only the images they created, but also the actual art work itself would have a chance to be seen in the culture where the movies that so inspired them were produced. Wow!

It is extremely gratifying to see this beautiful bit of ‘continental convergence’ celebrated in an exhibition at Hong Kong’s preeminent Hanart TZ Gallery. I believe it has always been my job to help artworks from other lands and cultures realize their potential as cross-cultural ambassadors and, in this way, remind us of the commonalities that exist between our disparate worlds.

The Inimitable Ernie Wolfe and Ghana’s Kung Fu Dream

Chang Tsong-Zung

I first heard Ernie Wolfe’s roar in the corridors of Lehman Hall, our freshman dormitory at college. A gregarious burly bear who romped his way through our common, dissipated college years, Ernie bore the burden of academic pressure with hallucinatory grace, generously dispensing humour beyond the walls of the classroom. It is rumoured that Ernie never missed the deer-hunting season throughout his school years.

I never knew Ernie as a kung fu aficionado, but as a licensed abalone diver, salmon fisher, boar stalker, deer hunter, yes. He clearly knew from the start where all the abalone was going, and that must have given him an early intuition of the glories of China.

Ultimately, however, it was Africa that connected him to the Central Kingdom.

That Ernie would end up as an expert in the contemporary art world, and in a corner of that world as unique and esoteric as Ghanaian folk-pop art, was something beyond anyone’s prognostications. It is fair to claim that in drawing attention to this genre, the intrepid Ernie has actually invented it for the western contemporary art world. So here we are, accosted by a new brand of wildly exuberant painters who in turn have re-imagined Kung Fu China and Hollywood America in their hand-painted movie posters made for their local African audience. Canonised by a new art history that speaks the language of global imagination, these Ghanaian painters step beyond the films to conjure a world activated by the drama of street justice and muscle-heroism. These paintings have inaugurated a new language for expressing suppressed desires, for making an epic of failed social histories, and giving shape to outlandish ghost stories and ancestor worship. Some of the best artists both invent dream worlds in their paintings and also take part in decorating the underworld, by designing ‘fantasy coffins’ and making memento reliquary boxes of all descriptions. Ernie recognized the universal appeal of their work, and brought these artists to international renown with a series of seminal exhibitions, including the breakthrough show Outrageous Supercharge at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in 2003.

Africa is not just about friendship or business for Ernie, but also beckons as a destiny. He has eventual plans for greeting the underworld in a polychrome lobster-shaped fantasy coffin (which he calls FAV, for ‘Fantastic Afterlife Vehicle’) that was commissioned in Ghana (unless a museum acquires it first). The traditional tribal blessing ‘Harambee!’ is how he will probably sign off.

We know that the Chinese kung fu magic seen in Africa has its source in the world of Hong Kong film. It was from Hong Kong that Bruce Lee, the king of kung fu on screen, began his mission to spread the word to audiences worldwide. With his lightning-fast Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist), cartwheel spin-kicks and brain-cracking nunchuks, Bruce Lee celebrated the body as the ultimate recourse for self-affirmation. A body fine-tuned prepares the rebel for battle against industry and technology, blowing asunder money, the workplace, race, class domination, all things unsightly and demeaning to the human spirit. The heroic fun created by Ghanaian artists magnifies Hong Kong’s dream factory, and celebrates it as an incubator of a global imagination of empowerment for the masses. Big thanks to the Ghanaian artists for sharing their visions and to Ernie the Lobster Incarnate for bringing them to us!

Hong Kong

On the First Moon of the Year of Fire Monkey