The Art Underground: Fantasy Coffins of Ghana

In Ga cosmology, the coffin is not merely a container but a vehicle and a bearer of meaning. It carries the dead toward the ancestral realm while speaking, in symbolic terms, of the life just lived. Families commission forms tied to profession, status, or aspiration, and through sustained dialogue with the coffin artist, each work becomes a portrait in wood—at once intimate and communal, grounded in belief yet open to invention.

From this beginning grew a lineage of artists shaped within the Kane Kwei workshop: Paa Joe, who carried the tradition outward; Cedi Anang, who sustained and expanded its practice; and a younger generation including Jacob Tetteh Ashong, Daniel Mensah (“Hello”), and Eric Adjetey Anang, Kwei’s grandson and the workshop’s current leader. The workshop remains a place of transmission, where knowledge passes hand to hand, and where carving, sanding, and storytelling bind generations together.

By the 1970s, these works began to travel beyond Ghana, entering museums and collections abroad. Their inclusion in Magiciens de la Terre in Paris in 1989 marked a decisive moment, placing them within an international conversation about contemporary art. In this expanded context, the coffins take on a double life: as vessels made for burial, and as sculptural forms that circulate and accrue new meanings. Held between worlds, they continue to evolve—where craftsmanship, cosmology, and remembrance remain inseparable.

Guest curated by Mark Sloan, in collaboration with Eric Adjetey Anang.