Ataa Oko was a Ghanaian builder of figurative palanquins and figurative coffins, and at over 80 years of age he became a painter of Art Brut.
Biography
Ataa Oko was born around 1919 in the coastal town of La, Ghana. 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. From 1939 to 1970 he worked in numerous temporary employments. According to Regula Tschumi, Ataa Oko started to build figurative coffins around 1945. He had been inspired by the figurative palanquins he had seen in Accra. These palanquins were used by the Ga chiefs already at the beginning of the 20th century. The palanquins were built in the form of the respective family symbols which the Ga chiefs were using. Around 1960 Ataa Oko opened his own coffin and palanquin workshop in La. The last years of his life, Ataa Oko was retired and hardly built coffins any more. Around 2005 the former carpenter started to draw. His graphic art practice was born as a result of his meeting with Regula Tschumi who was making a research about the figurative coffins of the Ga. Looking for information about this art form the ethnologist asked Ataa Oko to draw his former works he had made some 50 years ago. Ataa Oko's graphic work developed continuously. When he died in 2012, he left behind a comprehensive body of work that give a fascinating insight not only into the life of the artist, but also into the religious life and culture of the Ga people. Ataa Oko's coffins and drawings were first exhibited in the group show "Six Feet Under" at the Kunstmuseum Berne 2006 and 2010/11 he had first one-man show in the well known Collection de l'art brut in Lausanne. with Okos red rooster coffin 2009
2017. Regula Tschumi, Ataa Oko. A glimpse inside the amazing world of Ghanaian funerals and how the carpenter Ataa Oko became an artist,online magazine Interwoven: the fabric of things.
2014. Regula Tschumi: Concealed Art. The figurative palanquins and coffins of Ghana. Edition Till Schaap, Berne..
2014. Regula Tschumi: The buried treasures of the Ga: Coffin art in Ghana. Edition Till Schaap, Bern.. A revised and updated second edition of "The buried treasures of the Ga", Bern: Benteli 2008.
2013. Regula Tschumi "The Figurative Palanquins of the Ga. History and Significance", en: African Arts, Vol. 46, Nr. 4, 2013, pp. 60–73.
2006. Regula Tschumi, "Last Respects, First Honoured. Ghanaian Burial Rituals and Figural Coffins" in: Kunstmuseum Bern, Six Feet Under. Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead. Ex.-Cat. Bielefeld, Leipzig: Kerber, pp. 114–125.
Film, video
2010. . Philippe Lespinasse, Regula Tschumi, Andress Alvarez. Lausanne/Le Tourne, Parti de l’Art Brut/ LoKomotiv Films, 20 minutes,.
2009. Sépulture sur mesure, 52 minutes movie on the work of the Ga funerals, of the coffins of Ataa Oko Ado and Eric Adjetey Anang. Philippe Lespinasse, Grand Angle Production.
