Between the Sweet Water and the Swarm of Bees: an Exhibition of Works by Susanne Wenger

In Nigeria, many towns have a shrine dedicated to a local deity. The town of Osogbo is itself a shrine—a sacred grove—dedicated to the goddess Osun, situated on the river that bears her name. The sweet water of the river, in contrast to the salty sea, is just one of Osun’s aspects: she is a warrior and a seductress; she is beautiful but vain; and she has long protected Osogbo from destruction. Osogbo was a small, quiet city in 1960, at the dawn of Nigerian independence, that unexpectedly became a hub for modern Yoruba art and culture, centered around institutions like the Mbari Mbayo Club, the Osogbo school, and the Duro Lapido Theatre group. This growth was in large part due to the efforts of the artist Susanne Wenger (1915–2009), who revitalized Osogbo and developed an art program that engendered the next generation of Nigerian artists. Born in Graz, Austria, Wenger studied painting at the Meisterschule in Vienna. She arrived in Nigeria in December 1950, via Paris, thanks to a teaching opportunity at the University of Ibadan given to her husband, the writer Ulli Beier. Six months after she arrived, Wenger fell ill with tuberculosis. She attributed her recovery one year later to the god Obàtálá, who is charged with forming every human being. Obàtálá inspired Wenger’s subsequent work, bright oil paintings with wild and expressive lines, a far cry from the subdued landscapes she painted in Europe. In the mid-1950s Wenger turned to new media to express her ideas about her complex relationship with the god who saved her. She used cassava starch batik, which has a long history in West Africa, because she could no longer “allow herself to be tossed about by the waves” of Obàtálá. To begin to order and control her experience, Wenger became a member of the Obàtálá society, eventually working her way up to priestess. She turned to wax batik, which was less common in West Africa, because it is more receptive to the layering of color and is more precise, lending itself to her cause: illustrating the myths of the Yoruba deities, the orisha, in pictorial cycles. Around 1960, Wenger began to redevelop the Osun-Osogbo sacred grove, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She designed and erected new shrines with the help of members of the community, training them along the way and establishing one of the largest art programs in Nigeria. Wenger’s relationship with Osun is especially interesting because she was not a member of the cult of Osun; rather, as a priestess of Obàtálá, Wenger is in fact an opposing force to Osun. Her forms are distinct and illustrate this tension, regardless of their medium. These screen prints and batik are syncretic compositions of oriki (Yoruba praise poetry about orisha such as Obàtálá and Osun) and European mythology, and are extensions of Osun-Osogbo. They are not direct illustrations of the poems and stories displayed alongside them; rather, they are Wenger’s expressive interpretations of characteristics and legends that permeated her blended culture. Between the Sweet Water and the Swarm of Bees: Works by Susanne Wenger brings together screen prints and a wax batik, given to the Carlos in spring 2014 by Graham and Maryagnes Kerr, who purchased the works from the artist at her home in Osogbo between 1962 and 1967. Accompanying the screen prints and batik are works held by Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.