PAD London 2014

PAD, the twentieth-century art and design fair, will be held this year in London's Berkeley Square from October 15–19, and will be an important venue for the presentation of non-European art with the inclusion of four distinguished dealers. Veteran participant Galerie Bernard Dulon will show mostly African art, with an emphasis on works from Cameroon and Gabon. African art will also be the focus of displays by Alain de Monbrison and Lucas Ratton, while Galerie Flak will present an exhibition titled Pure Forms, which transcends geographic borders by focusing on form and emotional content.

Find out more at the official PAD website.

Mayas, révélation d'un temps sans fin

Set to open on October 7 at the Musée du Quai Branly is Mayas, révélation d'un temps sans fin (Maya: Revelation of an Endless Time), presenting objects from the majority of Maya territories and from the different periods that mark the extraordinary longevity of this civilisation, from the first archaeological remains (first millennium B.C.) until the present day. The Maya have left to posterity cities with spectacular architecture, sculpture of great aesthetic development, remarkable frescoes, refined ceramic vases… The exhibition presents nearly 400 works of art – including bas-relief and high relief sculptures, ceramic containers, lapidary art in jade, grave figurines and artefacts, jewellery, colonial documents, textiles, and more.  

More information at the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Helena and Ladislas Segy Collection at Arte Primitivo

Beginning September 29, Arte Primitivo will put to auction the African art collection of Helena and Ladislas Segy, along with other fine works. 

View the online catalogue.

Turquoise, Water, Sky: The Stone and its Meaning

On view until May 2, 2016 at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, Turquoise, Water, Sky: The Stone and Its Meaning highlights the Museum’s extensive collection of Southwestern turquoise jewelry and presents all aspects of the stone, from geology, mining and history, to questions of authenticity and value. The installation presents hundreds of necklaces, bracelets, belts, rings, earrings, silver boxes and other objects illustrating how the stone was used and its deep significance to the people of the region. 

Visit the exhibition website.

Bracelet  -  Navajo  -  ca. 1920s

Squash blossom necklace  -  Navajo  -   ca 1920–39

Images and information courtesy of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

Brussels Art Square

The Brussels Art Square event, held in participating galleries in the Sablon district, will take place on September 26–27 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. and this year will include a number of British participants. It will be an opportunity for encounters and discoveries in all artistic disciplines: from designer furniture to classical antiquities and Haute Epoque, and, of course, non-European art represented by Galerie Patrick and Ondine Mestdagh, Schiller Art Gallery, and Serge Schoffel.

The Art of Weapons

On view since late April, this exhibition explores the Hood Museum of Art's extraordinary collection of African weapons for the first time. It focuses on the aesthetic quality of the objects, and on the ways in which they reflect notions of masculinity, warriorhood, and ideal male beauty in traditional African societies. Because the weapons are in a Western museum's collection, the exhibition also considers Western notions of masculinity, as represented in the collecting practices of those Christian missionaries, colonial administrators, military officers, big game hunters, and explorers who acquired most of these weapons in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.

View the official website.

Ceremonial axe  -  Songye, D.R. Congo

Shield  -  Nuer, Sudan

Images and information courtesy of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College

The Frum Collection at Sotheby's

The superb collection of Oceanic art from Polynesia and Melanesia formed by the late Murray Frum and his family is the most significant group to come to market in the last thirty years, with a variety of objects from Indonesia to Polynesia at all ranges of the market. To be held only two days after Parcours des Mondes on September 16, the sale will be highlighted an extremely rare group of pre-contact Polynesian works.

View the online catalogue.

Figure, pou whakairo  -  Maori, New Zealand

Head of a staff god  -  Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Malanggan figure  -  New Ireland

Images and information courtesy of Sotheby's

Preview at Christie's Paris

Christie's Paris is presenting a preview exhibition of its winter tribal art sale through the 25th of September. Set to offer another gorgeous array of works from Africa, Oceania, and North America, the December 11 sale will include notable pieces once held in the collection of Saul and Marsha Stanoff.

Male figure with flywhisk  -  Bembe, D.R. Congo

Image courtesy of Christie's

Peruvian Gold: Ancient Treasures Unearthed

In its final weeks at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC is Peruvian Gold: Ancient Treasures Unearthed, which showcases a stunning array of gold and silver artifacts from Peru's pre-Inca heritage, including ceremonial and funerary masks, textiles, ceremonial ornaments, ceramics, and jewelry. The centerpiece of the exhibition is "El Tocado," the largest and most ornate pre-Columbian headdress ever discovered. This extraordinary example of gold regalia dates from the Middle Sican period (AD 900–1100) and came to light again in 1991. The exhibition draws its material from three Peruvian institutions: the Sican National Museum, the Larco Museum, and the Museum of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

East of the Wallace Line: Monumental Art from Indonesia and New Guinea

Newly opened at the Yale University Art Gallery is East of the Wallace Line: Monumental Art from Indonesia and New Guinea, an important new exhibition exploring the cultural characteristics of eastern Indonesia and coastal western New Guinea. Taking as its jumping-off point the “Wallace Line,” an ecological demarcation first recognized by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace that runs through Indonesia between Bali and Lombok and west of Sulawesi, the exhibition presents intricately decorated, large-scale sculptures and textiles, as well as more intimate personal and domestic objects. With more than 120 works from the 17th to 19th century, the exhibition features highlights from the Gallery’s permanent collection and select loans, many either too large or too fragile to be regularly displayed.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Korwar figure  -  Irian Jaya

Woman's tunic  -  Sulawesi

Mask  -  Timor

Betel container  -  Timor

Neckrest  -  Irian Jaya

Images and information courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery