Modernism

against

Modernity

A Tribute to Susanne Wenger

Peter Probst, Tufts University

On 13 January 2009, Austrian artist and

Yoruba Olorisa Susanne Adunni Wenger died at
the age of 94 in her adopted home of Osogbo,
southwest Nigeria. The news of her death spread
rapidly and prompted a multitude of comments
and obituaries all pointing to Wengers prominence
and importance in the history of modern African/
Nigerian art. Yet what exactly was Wengers
importance? How did she fit into the history of
African modernism, or, shall we rather say, the
African history of modernism?
In the course of my own work on Osogbos
transformation from the birthplace of an
important art movement to a major African hub
in the international heritage world, I met with
Wenger numerous times. 1 I have also visited
her Austrian home and discussed her work with
people she trusted and to whom she was close. Yet
despite these encounters I find it difficult to frame
any simple answer to the questions posed above.
What comes to mind instead are the particularities
of her enthusiasms and the idiosyncracies of her
personal style: her uncompromising commitment
to the preservation of the grove of Osogbos
guardian deity, the Yoruba river goddess Osun;
her radicality in the insistence on artistic freedom;
her mastery in creating and preserving an aesthetic
in-between space separating Yoruba/African and
Austrian/Western culture in her own life and
art; and not least, her idiosyncratic handwriting,
her ornamental scrawl, as she called it, which
seemed to mimic the Jugendstil heroes of her
Austrian homeland. But beyond a deep respect
for the richness and loneliness of this exceptional

life, what else can be said? What kind of life was

it, what kind of art did it create?
Born on 4 July 1915 in the city of Graz,
Austria, Wenger grew up in a bourgeois milieu.2
Her father taught English and French at a local
high school; her mother was the daughter of a
high-ranking army officer. In 1930 she attended
the local School of Applied Arts where she took
classes in ceramics. After having finished her
studies in Graz she moved to Vienna where she
continued her art education, first at the School
of Graphic Design and from 1933 to 1935 at the
Academy of Art. Like other students, Wengers
interest was in contemporary post-Secessionist
movements. The few works remaining from
Wengers Viennese phase exemplify different
styles ranging from pencil studies of plants
and animal bodies, executed with an almost
photographic precision, to Expressionistic and
Cubist-influenced paintings, to surrealist crayon
drawings. Taken together these works mark a
phase of search and experimentation.
Wengers reaction to the Nazi regime was
an internal emigration. Though she joined the
Communist party, hid befriended Jewish artists
in her studio, and helped to organize political
resistance, her most fundamental form of
opposition was a spiritual one. With no exhibitions
and buyers for her work, she spent many hours
in bookshops and private reading circles. Like the
works she created at that time, her intellectual
interests were eclectic, ranging from psychoanalysis
and Surrealism (Freud, Breton, but also C.G. Jung)
to traditional religion and shamanistic practices,

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Probst

Figure 1. Susanne Wenger at work in the Osun Osogbo grove (1970s). Photo: Bernstein.

Critical Interventions 3/4, Spring 2009

Modernism against Modernity

especially Inuit and Tibetan. When the war finally

ended in 1945, her situation gradually improved.
The director of a publishing house commissioned
Wenger to produce comic strips for a childrens
magazine; the editor of the new cultural journal
Plan published some of her surrealist drawings.
Friends and former colleagues invited her to join
the founding of the Vienna Art Club. In 1947 she
won a three-month trip to Italy as an award for a
poster competition. Upon her return she was able
to sell her works to Johann Egger (Hansegger), an
artist and art dealer in Switzerland whose gallery
Des Eaux Vives also represented Hans Arp, Piet
Mondrian, and Paul Klee. In 1949, following
Eggers suggestion, she moved to Paris, where
she met Ulli Beier.
The encounter with Beier marked a profound
and lasting shift in Wengers life. Having grown up
in Germany and Palestine, Beier had just obtained
a degree in phonetics from the University College
of London and was now in Paris on vacation,
awaiting the results of his application for a junior
lecturer post in English at the University College
of Ibadan in Nigeria.3 Wenger and Beier began an
affair in the French capital that neither intended
to end in marriage. As it turned out, though, the
Ibadan post was given only to married couples.
When Beier learned of the restriction, he and
Wenger decided to oblige to the rule. For both of
them the move to Africa was an adventure; their
navet added to the charm. Except for visits to
the Africa collections at the Trocadero, a proper
preparation was neither sought nor offered.
Having arrived in Ibadan, however, they quickly
realized what they had gotten involved in. The
university campus was secluded and situated at the
margins of the city. The colonial curriculum had
an exclusive focus on Western history and culture.
Interaction between Nigerians and members of the
British faculty hardly existed. While Beier reacted
to the colonial reality by seeking refuge in the

247

newly established extramural department, which

allowed him to work outside the campus, Wengers
response was more private and personal. After a
severe illness, she embarked on a spiritual journey,
which led to a kind of religious apprenticeship in
Ede and Ilobu. The results were initiations into
the cult groups of the two Yoruba deities Obatala
and Obaluaye/Sonponna as well as into Ogboni,
an important political institution whose authority
is rooted in its connection to the earth goddess.
Despite frequent assertions to the contrary, she
was never a member of the cult of Osun, the
guardian deity of the city in which she and Beier
started the Osogbo experiment.
The experiment arose out of, and continued
to be grounded in, modernist convictions about
the role of art in society. Both Wenger and Beier
believed that it was incumbent upon art to leave
the walls of the museum, to go out into the public
and become integrated into everyday life. In view
of the widespread opinion that African art was on
the verge of collapse, their agenda was to reunite
art and culture in order to effectively counter the
alienating effects of colonialism and capitalism on
Yoruba society, and in order to revitalize Yoruba/
African art. Prior to their relocation to Osogbo,
Beier had already organized conferences, launched
literary and cultural journals, and initiated art
projects like the Mbari club in Ibadan. However,
the audiences for these undertakings had been
composed mostly of academics. In Osogbo the
focus was on the local population. Together with
the Osogbo composer, playwright, and school
teacher Duro Ladipo, Beier founded the Mbari
Mbayo club, which became the incubator of the
Osogbo art movement. Wenger contributed to
its activities by building the screens at the clubs
entrance, designing the posters, helping with the
props for the theater performances, and other
tasks. Her own work, though, focused on the
artistic reshaping of the Osun grove.

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Probst

The creation of new shrines and sculptures

in the Osun grove was Wengers most famous
but also most difficult and contested project.4
Scattered throughout the grove, the style and
design of the structures can be seen as extensions
of her two-dimensional works in batik. In the
mid-1950s, soon after her initiation into Yoruba
religion, she had started to experiment with Adire,
the Yoruba batik technique. In contrast to the
traditional abstract designs, Wengers figurative
designs depicted episodes from the Yoruba
divination corpus, the Ifa. She also extended the
use of color beyond the traditional indigo. The
results were dense and dramatic compositions
full of tension which prefigured the works in
the grove.
Population growth and a growing intolerance
of Yoruba religion among the Muslim majority
had led to an increasing encroachment upon
the Osun grove by farmers, businessmen, and
timber companies. This development reflected a
growing lack of interest among the population at
large in preserving the grove. A prime expression
of this pervasive indifference was the state of
the main Osun temple, which was in danger of
collapse due to an infestation of ants. It was in
the midst of such adverse conditions that Wenger
was initially asked by local Osun officials for
help. Wenger accepted and gathered a number
of carpenters and bricklayers around her, with
whom she started to repair the structure.
What had begun as a small and limited project
soon expanded into a massive transformation
of Osogbos ritual landscape. In terms of size,
medium, and forms, the new works stood in
marked contrast to traditional Yoruba art. Instead
of the existing wood and adobe, Wenger used
cement. While Yoruba art is distinguished by its
balance, serenity, and restraint, Wengers forms
are spontaneous and overflowing as if they are
about to change into something else. Last but not

Critical Interventions 3/4, Spring 2009

least, whereas traditional Yoruba religious art is

secret, the images in the grove are public.
The differences Wenger introduced were
programmatic. It was the time of Nigerias
independence; the past was buried under the
effects of colonial rule, so that any return to
traditional aesthetics was deemed void. The
only option was to move forward, to find new
forms of artistic expression, new images that
mirrored the fluid, open, and indeterminate phase
of Nigerian society itself (Figure 1). In her 1977
publication, The Timeless Mind of the Sacred, Wenger
explained this rationale clearly:
Impatient and self-willed emancipation
of the individual mind is the criterion of
modern man. While the pasts trust lay
explicitly with the collective involvements
into the transcendent forms of life, the
modern individual is averse to readymade recipes as to how to embark on the
mystical adventure. Thus the Shrines, in
which dwell rs, who himself dwells
in man, have to be new and original in
their concept of the enduringly divine. If
not they are falsely affecting the spiritual
flow. Their symbolism cannot persist to
glorification of out-lived ideals, but must
encourage new interpretation, individual
spontaneity and spiritual independence,
which modern man needs to experience
with his gods []5
Following Wengers motto, new shrines are
modern or false,6 the grove project was framed
along the lines of similar activities in Europe. A
passage at the very beginning of the Timeless Mind
hints at the European counterpart to the Osun
project:

Modernism against Modernity

In a time when it seemed that Yoruba

[] has ceased to breathe and live on
our modern planes of life, The Cultural
Incident in sogbo sets out to resurrect
by means of arttheir seemingly
defeated, dethroned, and humiliated
gods, rs. 7
The phrase The Cultural Incident comes
out of nowhere and is never mentioned again
nor explained. In fact, the text is full of similarly
enigmatic phrases and passages. Together they
convey the impression that only the few (the
initiated) are allowed and able to understand
the power resulting from the Timeless Mind of the
Sacred. Still, the use of quotation marks suggest
that Wenger must have been aware of the
correlation between the Cultural Incident in
Osogbo and the strategies practiced in Paris and
other European cities by members of the postSurrealist group SI, the Situationist International
(SI).8 Founded in 1957, the group consisted of
splinter members of previous artists collectives,
prominent among them Ansgar Jorn from CoBra
and Guy Debord from Lettrist International (LI).
Both CoBra and LI traced their roots back to
Surrealism. The Situationists continued in this
tradition, adding a politically revolutionary agenda
to Surrealist ideas of psychic environments.
Wenger was quite aware of the Surrealist
agenda. During her time in Vienna she had
participated in reading circles wherein private
translations of Andre Bretons writings were
discussed. 9 She had also experimented with
automatic writing and painting. Yet unlike Breton
and his followers, Wenger was less concerned with
the political and revolutionary potential of these
experiences than with their spiritual quality. When
she was finally able to visit Paris, the very center of
Surrealism in 1949, she could not connect to the
citys artistic scene. For her the prevailing artistic

249

debates reflected a bloodless intellectualism, which

lacked serious spiritual depth.
Notwithstanding Weng ers personal
alienation from the Parisian scene, her strategy
with respect to the Osun grove project echoes
the activities and agenda of SI. From the late
1950s onwards, Debord and others developed a
series of strategies, or situations that aimed to
attack and disturb the capitalist system and the
increasing commodification and banalization of
life it brought about. One of these strategies,
termed drive or drift,10 consisted of aimless
movements through a socially shared space, the
goal being to reappropriate a cityscape, wresting
it from the control and economic reasoning of
urban planners by divorcing ones actions from all
intentionality, thereby reconnecting to the emotive
force fields of the city, its psycho-geography.
Debords outline of drive was published 1958,
the very same year Wenger arrived in Osogbo.
While the date may be a coincidence, what
followed is not. In a manner reminiscent of drive,
Wenger began to explore the various spiritual force
fields of Osogbo. Gradually new image works
emerged in the grove and other parts constituting
the citys psycho-geography. Conceived as
containers and coordinated centers of sacred
force accumulation, 11 their erection seemed
to be guided by Wengers idiosyncratic mixture
of Surrealist ideas and esoteric offshoots of
the so-called life reform or back to nature
movements in Germany.
Linked by a spiritual and experiential focus on
nature, the German life reform movement was
a loose affiliation of various groups,12 including
popular youth organizations like Wandervgel,
whose members organized outdoor camps and
went on hiking excursions, and more esoteric
groups like the followers of Rudolf Steiners
anthroposophy. By the time of Wengers birth
in 1915, anthroposophy had already become

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Probst

a prominent social and spiritual movement.

Striving to overcome the spiritual emptiness of
contemporary society, the movement had its
own schools (Waldorf), its own style of theater
and dance (Eurhythmy), and its own distinct art
and architecture. The holistic approach reflected
Steiners conviction that the spiritual world is as
real and objective as the natural world.13 Based
on Goethes philosophy of nature, he considered
the realm of ideas as the result of a permanent
interaction and interplay between the realm
of the body and the realm of the mind. Since
nature (body) is already part of spirit (mind) and
vice versa, life is subject to organic growth and
constant metamorphoses.
It can be argued that Steiners anthroposophy
influenced not only Wengers preferences for
earthen materials like ceramics, concrete, and
cement, but also the design of her structures in
the Osun grove.14 In fact, one could even maintain
that the Steinerian worldview sensitized Wenger
to the value and the aesthetics of Yoruba art
and religion. The commonalities are many and
obvious. For one, there is the gnostic element in
both anthroposophy and Yoruba religion. That
is to say, common to both is a concern with the
exclusivity of esoteric knowledge, which makes
the possession of spiritual wisdom as well as the
techniques to acquire that wisdom a privilege of
only a few. Another feature is the common focus
on nature. Yoruba divinities are forces of nature
that manifest themselves in trees, rivers, stones,
and other organic and inorganic forms. While
anthroposophy does not elevate these forces to
deities, it teaches reverence for the manifestations
of nature as spiritual presences. Both Yoruba
religion and anthroposophy posit that men are
subject to interactions with these forces, resulting
in metamorphosis, a prominent motif in the art
and aesthetics of both. Last but not least, both
Yoruba and Steinerian aesthetics are deeply

Critical Interventions 3/4, Spring 2009

dualistic, seeing the universe as comprised of

material and immaterial forms expressed through
the opposites of earth and sky, water and fire, or
light and dark.15
Wengers work both incorporated oppositions
and provoked them, as it met with both positive
and negative responses in Nigeria and abroad. She
inadvertently found herself at a nexus of tensions
in the newly independent African country. Her
initial backing, and implicit artistic license, came
mostly from Osogbos ruler Ataoja Adenle, the
ritual owner of the Osun grove. In 1966, as a
member of the new independent government, he
saw to it that the young Nigerian state declared
the grove a national monument. But this was
more than a simple celebration of Yoruba culture;
it was a defensive move against the violent attacks
that were taking place against the structures, both
from commercial and religious sources. Many
among Osogbos Muslim majority considered the
grove a pagan embarrassment. Thus, protecting
and enhancing the grove not only hindered its
economic exploitation (the presence of structures
meant that the land could not be sold or used for
farming) but was also a provocation to Muslim
and Christian conservatives. Their critique focused
particularly on the overt depiction of sexual
organs. For Wenger the molding of a giant vagina
as an entrance to a shrine was emblematic of the
fecundity and female power of Osun; for others
it was an offence against public morality.
Equally negative was the reaction from the
Nigerian art scene. The irony was that, while the
Osogbo project was intended to challenge colonial
celebrations of authenticity and fixed identities,
Nigerian critics invoked the very notion of
authenticity to reproach the artists and deprecate
their works. What Beier had still celebrated as an
example of Afro-European culture contact16 was
now rejected as a perversion of Nigerias artistic
image17 or at best problematized as an enigma.18

Modernism against Modernity

The question of the legitimacy of Wengers project

mirrored the changing political conditions, which
shaped the public attitude towards Osogbo art in
general. Critical voices became louder and more
insistent as the postcolonial Nigerian state became
economically stronger and more self-assured.
It was no coincidence, then, that an important
critique of the Osogbo artists, significantly entitled
The Search for Identity in Contemporary Nigerian Art,
was published in 1977, that is, in the same year
the Nigerian state organized FESTAC, the second
Pan African Festival of Arts and Culture.19
Yet, many of those who came from abroad to
attend FESTAC showed an interest in Osogbo art.
Already in the late 1960s, the African-American
painter Jacob Lawrence had attended one of the
Osogbo workshops. Shortly thereafter, the jazz
musician Ornette Coleman paid a visit, followed
by Anne Teer, founder of the National Black
Theater in Harlem. In the course of time a steady
flow of exchanges between Osogbo and Harlem
emerged. Eventually Osogbo attracted as many
people interested in Yoruba religion as those
interested in art. For many of them, the annual
Osun festival came to be even more important
than the exhibitions and theater performances of
Osogbo artists.
The new international interest in the festival
led to vehement struggles between Wenger and the
palace over the authority to define the appropriate
form and expression of Yoruba culture. At stake
was the tourist potential of the grove and the
festival. Meanwhile, Oba Adenle had passed
away and both his successor, Oba Iyiola Oyewale
Matanmi III, and the Nigerian government, were
eager to turn the festival and the grove into a tourist
attraction. Already negotiations were underway
with American foundations who had expressed
an interest in financing the transformation of
the grove into a kind of Yoruba theme park. As
market driven as these ideas were, it would be a

251

mistake to understand them only as an expression

of capitalist reasoning. After all, developing Osuns
grove reflected also the belief in Osuns powers.
As a water deity Osun was and still is considered to
be the source of fertility and prosperity, including
economic prosperity. Thus, generating money
from the Osun grove and in this way making the
grove even more popular was justified as an act
of service and honor to Osun.
Not everybody agreed, though, and principal
among the fierce opponents of commercialization
were Wenger and her group. After Beiers
departure from Osogbo the artistic center of the
city had shifted from the Mbari Mbayo club to
Wengers Brazilian house where, remarried to a
local drummer, she was surrounded by her cult
members, fellow artists, and numerous adopted
children. In a parallel to the Situationists lament
about the banalization of life, Wenger feared a
vulgarization of the sacred place and turned to
the Director of the Antiquities Department, Ekpo
Eyo, for help. Eyo responded by initiating a proper
survey of the grove based on the ritual sites and
oral traditions, and determined the official size
of the grove to be seventy-five hectares. Since
the intended tourist facilities would have been
sited on the land of the grove, the development
plan had to be abandoned. Subsequent to this,
the relationship between Wenger and the palace
deteriorated, reaching a nadir in the so-called
Osogbo Incident in 1985. In early January
of that year, Wenger and her group erected
a two-meter high wooden statue at the Osun
Kingsmarket shrine opposite the palace, replacing
an older, smaller statue that had shown signs of
decay. Carved by Kasali Akangbe, the new figure
had an elongated human form, representing
Alajogun Alajere, a fusion of three different
deities, Sonponna/Obaluaye, Ogun, and Esu, and
celebrated pubertal awakening sexuality, depicted
by a large erect penis. To protect the figure

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Probst

from hooliganism, Wenger erected a signboard

right next to it declaring the figure and the site
as standing under the auspices of the National
Commission of Museums and Monuments,
formerly the Department of Antiquities. Putting
up a signboard signalled that problems were to
be expected. Indeed, only one night after the
statues installation, Wengers associates caught
two youngsters in the act of demolishing the
figure. At the police they confessed that they
were sent by a high-ranking palace official.
Wenger protested vehemently, and soon after
the Oshogbo Incident was not only the talk
of the town but also a headline in the national
newspapers. Accusations were raised against
Wenger for being too radical and insensitive to
Yoruba culture and aesthetics. Wenger responded
by insisting on the ritual effectiveness of the
figure and the propriety of ritual observance
connected with it: All necessary offerings were
done according to tradition.20 In view of the
deviation from established forms she argued [t]
hat the statue is modern fits a living religion.21
Reimbursement was not demanded. Instead she
stressed that:
All sacred art of our hands are offerings
to the gods, so as to thank them and
ask them for protection in our effort to
serve these the representatives of sacred
force and human dignity and glory-ofthe spirit.22
Wengers explanations did little to cool down
the heated atmosphere. On 15 January 1985, the
Local Government Traditional Council held a
meeting during which it condemned Wengers
gross disrespect for our cherished antiquities
and strongly warned her to desist from profaning
our tradition and cultural heritage.23 Wenger
had received an invitation to the meeting of
Critical Interventions 3/4, Spring 2009

the Traditional Council but she refrained from

attending on the advice of the Director of
the National Commission of Museums and
Monuments. Instead, a delegation from the
Commission arrived in Osogbo a month later
trying to resolve the issue. During a meeting
with all the parties concerned, an agreement was
reached. To sustain the peace but also to remain
in control over the grove, the Commission opened
up a museum station in Osogbo 1986 as a kind
of buffer between the two conflicting parties.
Wengers two main assistants, Kasali Akangbe and
Adebisi Akanji, were put on the museum staff,
and the museums director became an ex officio
member of the newly founded Osogbo Heritage
Council as well as a liaison to Wenger. The
arrangement worked, at least from the outside.
In 1988 Wenger even received an award from the
Nigerian Tourist Board.24
The award paralleled the increasing interest in
Wengers work in her Austrian homeland. From
the mid 1980s onwards, she had a series of solo
exhibitions in Krems, Graz, and Vienna, and
received numerous awards for her work. Particular
attention was given to environmental issues. In
1996 and 1998, the Osun Grove Support Group
and the Adunni Olorisha Trust were founded.
The aim was and still is to ensure the continuation
of her [Wengers] work and the preservation of
her legacy.25 For this the Trust portrayed Wenger
as one of the pioneers of a green philosophy
and aesthetic. Complementary to this assessment,
the Osun Grove Support Group focused on the
territorial integrity of the grove, the preservation
and conservation of its biodiversity, and the
support of local heritage initiatives. Around the
same time, influential expatriates and members of
the Nigerian government began to think about
nominating the grove for the inscription onto the
UNESCO list of world heritage sites. In 2005 their
ambitions were crowned with success. During

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253

Figure 2. Susanne Wenger Birthday Billboard in Osogbo. Photo: Mimra 2005.

the session of the World Heritage Committee in

Durban, it was announced that the nomination
had been approved and the grove added to the
UNESCO list. In Osogbo, people responded to
the news with joy and celebration. It happened
that the announcement coincided with Wengers
ninetieth birthday. Huge billboards were erected in
town congratulating the artist (Figure 2). Wenger
herself viewed the recognition with satisfaction,
yet she also realized that the UNESCO title was
a mixed blessing.
Wengers own ideas about the preservation/
conservation of cultural artifacts were critical. The

modernist tradition she embodied also shaped her

views on the issue of heritage. As shown above,
for Wenger life was about metamorphosis not
musealization. In the case of heritage, though,
her point of reference was not Rudolf Steiner,
but Alois Riegl. In his capacity as Austrias first
national monument conservator, Riegl argued
against historic reconstruction of monuments.26
In his view, monuments had to reflect not only
the experience of loss, but also that of change.
Signs of decay were crucial in this respect and
had to be embraced rather than erased. The
direct haptic and visual contact with signs of age,

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Probst

Riegl maintained, would create an ambiance or

mood, a Stimmung, that would not only depict but
counteract the experience of loss, by making us
aware of our place in the wider chain of evolution
and allowing us to realize natures own laws of
growth and decayof which man is a part.
As I learned in my conversations with her about
the future of the grove, Wenger sympathized with
this position. While she regarded it as her destiny
to fight for the grove, she equally acknowledged
that everything has its time, that new forms
are constantly evolving, that the world is in a
continuous process of creation. In terms of her
own work in the grove, she favored a controlled
decay over a Debordian spectacle.27 The same
aversion to the forces of commodification also
affected the question of her burial. As she had
repeatedly made clear, she wanted to be buried in
the grove, in the very place that she had devoted
her life to preserving. But concerned that her final
resting place might become cannibalized by the
heritage industry and/or turned into a pilgrimage
site, she instructed that the exact location of the
grave be kept secret.
Her will was respected. Shortly after her
death she was buried according to Yoruba Orisa
custom. Time will tell if a peregun tree will grow
at the burial site and Wenger will be transformed
into a Yoruba deity. Her life certainly matched
the stunning deeds and capacities of Yoruba
divinities. If I were asked to point to important
themes for her praise songs, I would allude to
her Austrian home as the source of her artistic
self-understanding. Despite the fact that she lived
more than half of her life in Nigeria, she did
not consider herself Yoruba or Nigerian. I would
also refer to the difficulties her unwillingness to
compromise created both for her surroundings
and for herselfone of the consequences of
which was a loneliness she learned to endure. Last
but not least, I would depict her life as a fight of

Critical Interventions 3/4, Spring 2009

modernism against modernity. Whose modernism

it was, I leave open. After all, Yoruba praise poetry
is characterized by its coded, enigmatic language,
a feature that correlates well with the many
contradictions and puzzles Wengers remarkable
life represents to those who remember her.

Notes
1

6
7
8

10

Peter Probst, The Art of Heritage in a Yoruba City

(Forthcoming). Work has been completed and
I am currently preparing the manuscript for
publication.
The following biographical account is based
on Rolf Brockmann and Gerd Htter, Adunni:
A Portrait of Susanne Wenge (Hamburg: Machart,
1994); Gnther Eisenhut, Susanne Wenger,
in Moderne in Dunkler Zeit, ed. G. Eisenhut and
P. Weibel. (Graz: Verlag Groschl, 2001); and
my own conversations with Susanne Wenger in
2001, 2002, 2003 and 2008.
For a biography of Beier, see Wole Odundele,
Omoluabi: Ulli Beier, Yoruba Society and Culture
(Bayreuth: Bayreuth African Studies Series,
2003).
For a description of the project see Ulli Beier,
The Return of the Gods: The Sacred Art of Susanne
Wenger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1975); as well as Susanne Wenger, The Sacred
Groves of Osogbo (Wien: Kontrapunkt, 1990).
Susanne Wenger, The Timeless Mind of the Sacred
(Ibadan: Institute of African Studies, 1977), 8,
11.
Ibid., 54.
Ibid., 7.
On SI see Simon Ford, The Situationist International
(London: Black Dog, 2005).
The mediator between Vienna and Paris and
translator of Bretons writings was the German
artist and poet Edgar Jen. See Edgar Jen
and Max Hlzer, Surrealistische Publikationen
(Klagenfurt: J. Haid, 1950).
Guy Debord, The Theory of the Drive, in The

Modernism against Modernity

11

12

13

14

15
16

17

18

19
20

23

21
22

Theory of the Drive and other Situationist Writings on

the City, ed. L. Andreotti and X. Costa (Barcelona:
Actar, 1996), 22-7. Drive prefigured much of
what French scholars such as De Certeau later
popularized as spatial tactics. See Michel De
Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984).
Gerd Chesi, Susanne Wenger: A Life with the Gods
(Wrgl: Perlinger, 1983), 135.
For a good discussion of the various artistic
groups within the life reform movement, see
Renate Foitzek Kirchgraber, Lebensreform und
Knstlergruppen um 1900, unpublished Ph.D.
Dissertation, Department of Art History
(University of Basel, 2003).
Rudolf Steiner, Nature Spirits: Selected Lectures
(London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995). I am
indebted to Beat Wyss for making me aware of
the linkage between Steiner and Wenger.
The argument is difficult to prove though.
Wenger was a member in the youth organization
Wandervgel. She also knew about Steiners
teachings. In my own conversations with her she
showed sympathy for anthroposophic ideas but
rejected any direct influence.
See Steiner, 1995.
Ulli Beier, Susanne Wenger: An Example of
Afro-European Culture Contact. Black Orpheus,
No. 2 (1962).
Babatunde Lawal, The Search for Identity in
Contemporary Nigerian Art. Studio International,
March-April (1977), 145-150.
Bola Olowo, Living with the Gods: A Profile of
an Artistic Enigma. West Africa, No. 3745, 29.
May 4. June (1989), 874-5.
See Lawal, 1977.
Susanne Wenger, letter to the editor of Sunday
Sketch in reply to the article The Oshogbo
Incident, January 10th 1985.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Quoted after the respective document from the
Osogbo Local Government. Sent as a copy to
Ulli Beier. I am grateful to Ulli Beier for letting
me read and quote from the document.

24

25

26

27

255

In an open letter from May that year to

her friends and supporters Wenger herself
commented on the distinction as follows: I
knew well enough already then which message
that award is meant to forward to me, namely
the military Government is decided to get rid of
me. I expressed my sympathy as a fellow-captive
to the sow who is expected to be honored to be
chosen for slaughter. Susanne Wenger: A Report.
May, 14th, 1988.
http://www.geocities.com/adunni1/aot.html,
last visited May 8, 2007.
Alois Riegl, Der Moderne Denkmalkultus: Sein
Wesen und seine Entstehung (Wien & Leipzig: W.
Braunmller. 1903).
Guy Debord, La Socit du Spectacle (Paris: ditions
Champ Libre, 1967).

Recollections