Ataa Oko
Encyclopedia
Ataa Oko is a Ghanaian coffin artist.
. He never went to school, but worked since he was about 13 years old as a fisherman. Later his family sent him on the cocoa plantations in the Ashante Region. From 1936 to 1939 he was trained as a carpenter in Accra. 1939 to 1970 he worked in numerous temporary employments. Around 1945 he started to build his first figurative coffins. After only a few years, he became known throughout the entire coastal region for his innovative coffins, so that in 1951 he finally opened his own coffin workshop in La. These days Ataa Oko is retired and hardly builds coffins any more, but since 2005 he became a painter in collaboration with Regula Tschumi
. Ataa Okos coffins and drawings were first exhibited in the group show "Six Feet Under" at the Kunstmuseum Berne 2006 and 2010/11 in his first one man show in the Collection de l'Art Brut
Biography
Ataa Oko was born around 1919 in the coastal town of La, GhanaGhana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
. He never went to school, but worked since he was about 13 years old as a fisherman. Later his family sent him on the cocoa plantations in the Ashante Region. From 1936 to 1939 he was trained as a carpenter in Accra. 1939 to 1970 he worked in numerous temporary employments. Around 1945 he started to build his first figurative coffins. After only a few years, he became known throughout the entire coastal region for his innovative coffins, so that in 1951 he finally opened his own coffin workshop in La. These days Ataa Oko is retired and hardly builds coffins any more, but since 2005 he became a painter in collaboration with Regula Tschumi
Regula Tschumi
- Bibliography :Regula Tschumi has spent time in East, West and South Africa, researching into contemporary African art. In 2006 she published a standard work on the figurative coffins of the Ga people. In this book she traces the origins of these coffins in the art and religion of the Ga, and...
. Ataa Okos coffins and drawings were first exhibited in the group show "Six Feet Under" at the Kunstmuseum Berne 2006 and 2010/11 in his first one man show in the Collection de l'Art Brut
Exhibitions
- 2011/12. Miracles of Africa, Hämeenlinna Art Museum, HämeenlinnaHämeenlinnaHämeenlinna is a city and municipality of about inhabitants in the heart of the historical province of Häme in the south of Finland and is the birthplace of composer Jean Sibelius. Today, it belongs to the region of Tavastia Proper, and until 2010 it was the residence city for the Governor of the...
and Oulu Museum of Art, Oma, Finnland - 2011. Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich. Ghanaian 'fantasy coffin, 27th Sep 2011 - 4th Dec 2011. Griff Rhys Jones.
- 2010/11. Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne. One man show Ataa Oko et les Esprits.
- 2006 and 2007/2008. Kunstmuseum Bern and Deutsches Hygienemuseum, Dresden. Exhibition Six Feet Under: Autopsie unseres Umgangs mit Toten.
Media
- 2010. The Deathbead of a Living Man. A Coffin for the Centre Pompidou. Regula Tschumi in: Saâdane Afif (ed.), Anthologie de l'humour noir, Paris: Editions Centre Pompidou, p. 56-61.
- 2010. Ataa Oko. Exhibition catalogue. ed. Collection de l'Art Brut. Gollion: Infolio. (French).
- 2008. The Buried Treasures of the Ga. Coffin Art in Ghana. Regula Tschumi. Bern. Benteli.
- 2006. Last Respects, First Honoured. Ghanaian Burial Rituals and Figural Coffins in: Kunstmuseum Bern (ed.), Six Feet Under. Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead. Ex.-Cat. Bielefeld, Leipzig: Kerber, p. 114-125.
Film, Video
- 2010. Ataa Oko and the spirits. Philippe Lespinasse, Regula Tschumi, Andress Alvarez. Lausanne/Le Tourne, Parti de l’Art Brut/ LoKomotiv Films, 20 minutes, (subtitled).