Face to Face

The Israel Museum will open an exhibition entitled Face to Face: The Oldest Masks in the World on March 11. Curated by Dr. Debby Hershman, the show will be a first in many respects, as the 9000-year-old limestone masks that are its subject— twelve of which are known—have never been brought together before, even on their home territory.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Photos courtesy of The Israel Museum

"African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting" at Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

Toussaint Louverture et la vielle esclave
by Ousmane Sow, 1989

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art is displaying its acquisitions from the past decade in a new exhibit with a towering sculpture as its centerpiece. 


The sculpture of Haitian leader Toussaint Louverture was created by Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow in 1989 to commemorate the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Toussaint Louverture led Haiti's freedom struggle against slavery and French colonial rule. It is a life-size, heroic and fairly naturalistic mixed media sculpture that captures the global connections of African art. It was acquired last year at auction in France.


The museum is featuring more than 100 works in "African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting." It opened Friday, November 19th. The exhibit pays tribute to the extraordinary variety of individual works of art that have come into the museum as gifts or purchases. Together, these artworks represent 10 years of building a permanent collection that embodies the diversity and outstanding quality of Africa's arts. 


The collection of the National Museum of African Art has been formed through careful curatorial selections and the generous gifts of many individuals - from specialized art collectors and talented artists to former ambassadors, Peace Corps volunteers and missionaries. 


The exhibit includes examples of modern and contemporary African works of art - paintings, works on paper, sculpture and mixed media works by some of the continent's most recognizable artists.  It features African masks, figures, containers and jewelry, as well as a briefcase created from discarded aluminum used to make soda cans. 


The exhibit will be open through December 2011. The National Museum of African Art is located in Washington, D.C. at 950 Independence Avenue. 


Source: National Museum of African Art website

Dallas Museum of Art Opens African Masks: The Art of Disguise

DALLAS - The Dallas Museum of Art will present a significant look at African visual culture through African Masks: The Art of Disguise, a new exhibition of approximately seventy works of art exploring the highly developed and enduring art of the African mask and revealing their timeless beauty, function, and meaning. Centered on the DMA’s distinguished collection of African art, acclaimed as one of the top five of its kind in the United States and which has set precedents since its inception 40 years ago, African Masks: The Art of Disguise features several works of art from the Museum’s collection that will be displayed for the first time. Significant works from other museum and private collections are also included in the exhibition.

African masks serve as supports for the spirit of deities, ancestors and culture heroes, which may be personified as human or animal, or a composite. Masked performances, held on the occasions of thanksgiving celebrations, rites of passage and funerals, often entertain while they teach moral lessons. In African Masks: The Art of Disguise, a variety of masks from sub-Saharan Africa offers a range of types, styles, sizes and materials and the contexts in which they appear. Carved wooden masks will be featured along with masks made of other materials including textiles, animal skin and beads. Because the mask is frequently only one part of an ensemble, full masquerade costumes will also be displayed, and the masks will “come to life” in performances recorded on film and in contextual photographs.

On view August 22, 2010 through February 13, 2011 in Chilton Gallery I, African Masks will be accompanied by an all-new smARTphone tour highlighting 19 masks in the exhibition and a visit “behind-the-scenes.” Visitors will be encouraged to view 10 additional masks in the Museum’s Arts of Africa galleries on the third level; they are among the 150 objects from the collection that are currently on view at the DMA.

“Our extraordinary African art collection is a particular point of strength and pride for the Museum, and with African Masks: The Art of Disguise, we take an in-depth look at the collection and present an innovative new way of looking at it,” said Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “Through the use of the smARTphone tour, which includes cultural information, videos and behind-the-scenes interviews, along with more information about the works of art, this exhibition offers the visitor a dynamic experience.”

“Connoisseurs of African art and tourists collect masks, preferably carved wooden ones. Africans consider the entire masquerade—the object that conceals the head and the costume that covers the body—to be the “mask.” The person within this ensemble is also part of the mask! This exhibition celebrates the art of both the sculptor and the costume maker,” said Roslyn A. Walker, Senior Curator of the The Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art at the Dallas Museum of Art and the exhibition curator. “The African masquerade is a multimedia interactive experience that involves not only the sculptor but also the costume makers, dancers, musicians, spirits and audience.”

African Masks is divided into four sections and includes these highlighted works of art:

Masquerades are multimedia events that often include not one but several masked dancers embodying various spirits. On display for the first time is Chihongo face mask from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola: Chokwe peoples, made of wood, basketry, fiber, feathers, tukula, kaolin and iron; and Egungun costume from the Republic of Benin (former Dahomey): Yoruba peoples, made of cloth, appliqué, wood, cowrie shells, glass beads, animal claw or beak, sequins, animal fur and animal hide, and vinyl.

Human Disguises, including Four-face helmet mask (ñgontang) from Gabon: Fang peoples, made of wood and paint; and Forehead mask (mbuya type) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Central Pende peoples, made of wood, pigment and raffia fiber.

Composite Disguises, featuring a Water spirit helmet mask (Obukele) from Nigeria, Delta area: Abua peoples, made of wood, pigment and paint; and Mask (kifwebe) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Songye peoples, made of paint, fiber, cane and gut.

Animal Disguises, including Mask (gye) from the Côte d’Ivoire: Guro peoples, made of wood, paint and sheet metal; and Elephant mask (mbap mteng) from Cameroon: village of Banjoun (?), Bamileke peoples, made of palm-leaf fiber textile, cotton textile, glass beads and palm-leaf ribs
Two other masks that have never been on display before include Face mask (gle or ga),Dan peoples, Côte d’Ivoire or Liberia, made of wood, fiber and pigment; and Helmet mask (Lipiko), Makonde peoples, Tanzania, made of wood, beeswax, human hair and pigment.

Visitors will be able to explore and experience the exhibition with moving footage sound, and a smARTphone tour featuring Dr. Walker, Exhibition Designer Alan Knezevich, art collectors and performers, as well as a mask and animal connection featuring animals from the Dallas Zoo. The tour can be accessed by visitors on Wi-Fi–enabled smartphones and media players at DallasMuseumofArt.mobile.

African Masks is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and curated by Roslyn A. Walker, Senior Curator, The Arts of Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific and The Margaret McDermott Curator of African Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Dr. Walker is also the author of the newly published book The Arts of Africa at the Dallas Museum of Art, the first catalogue dedicated to exploring the Museum’s collection of nearly 2,000 objects—acclaimed as one of the top five of its kind in the United States. Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the collection, which began with a gift of more than 200 objects from DMA benefactors Eugene and Margaret McDermott, the catalogue draws from both historical sources and contemporary research to examine over 100 figures, masks and other works of art that represent 52 cultures, from Morocco to South Africa.

Source: Dallas Museum of Art

African Art: Beyond the Modernist Lens

Mask (mukudj), 20th c.
Punu peoples, Gabon
Wood, pigment, 10 1⁄2 x 5 1⁄2 x 9 1⁄2 inches
Gift of Bob Bronson, 1977.58.6

African Art
Beyond the Modernist Lens
August 14 - December 23
at the University of Virginia Art Museum

Derived from the Museum’s growing collection of African art, the exhibition African Art: Beyond the Modernist Lens examines the way African art is currently perceived and displayed in Western museum settings.

Once considered fetishes, African traditional sculptures were displayed in 20th century galleries, arranged alongside European and American products in a manner that emphasized their artistic qualities rather than their local meaning and use. The exhibition suggests that such early displays often influenced the collection of certain types of African objects, particularly those that appealed to Western notions of artistic elegance, abstract form, and exotic appearance. However, these standards had very little to do with African aesthetic values that are expressed in ritual and quotidian objects alike. African craftsman used these prescribed concepts of beauty and associated motifs to create objects that express both a

Contemporary African Art in Havana

From a continent known for traditional symbolic production came to us a different type of exhibit. Pieces that mark the contemporaneity in African art —without ceasing to maintain its roots— are being exhibited this month in the Africa House of the Havana Office of the City Historian.

On display there are masks of wood and fiber that are used in ritual ceremonies, such as Muana Pwo, the first representation of the mythical woman of the Cokwe ethnic group in Angola; or the Bamoun mask of Cameroon, which is linked to the religion of that country and made of coins, wood and metal.

Also on view is a traditional door that reflects the Arab past of the Republic of Zanzibar, an oil painting by D. Sibanda from Zimbabwe, as well as audio-visual presentations that contain musical wealth as diverse as the peoples who form the African continent.

According to specialist Lazara Menendez, who inaugurated the exhibition, “The plurality of speech allows us to recognize diversified aesthetic experiences that nurture new re-conceptual readings of cultural legacy.” In this way we can enjoy everything from the most artisanal creations to technological advances traveling across dissimilar spaces of art in Africa, a pluri-cultural continent. “All that is lacking are works of art produced by women – an absence to keep in mind.”

The Africa Museum is devoted to research and the promotion of African culture and its impact in the formation of Cuban culture.

Source: Havana Times

By Irina Echarry

New Book: African Art in Detail

From the Harvard University Press comes a book written by Chris Spring entitled African Art in Detail. The book opens with the question: What is African art? The answer is a brilliantly colorful and detailed look at the myriad materials and genres, forms and meanings, cultural contexts and expressions that comprise artistic traditions across this vast and varied continent. Viewing artworks in their contexts—ancient and modern, urban and rural, western and eastern, decorative and functional—the book is nothing less than a virtual tour of African culture.

Masks, textiles, royal art, sculpture, ceramics, tools and weapons—in each instance, the book features examples that reveal the most significant aspects of workmanship, materials, and design in objects of wood, stone, ivory, clay, metalwork, featherwork, leather, basketwork, and cloth. Photographs of each piece alongside close-ups of fine details afford new views of these works and allow for intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated objects and media. The featured details evoke the hand and eye of the most accomplished craftspeople across Africa, past and present. In sum, these photographs, along with Christopher Spring’s enlightening commentary, offer an experience of African art that is at once broad and deep, richly informed and intimately felt. They are, at the same time, a kaleidoscopic view of art from pre­history to gestures prefiguring the future.

The book, which can be purchased for $22.95 is available in hardcover and was published in February 2010.

Why African Art is Having a Renaissance

(CNN) -- African art has long been about more than just tribal masks and traditional carvings, and now contemporary African artists are being recognized globally.

The Johannesburg Art Fair recently showcased the works of 400 African contemporary artists, attracting more than 10,000 visitors. Organizer Ross Douglas told CNN there had been an explosion of interest in African art in recent years.

"Africa has always had a strong tribal art and a strong craft component, and that will always stay, he said.

"But that doesn't mean there can't be a contemporary market existing alongside that, and if you look in South Africa at the contemporary market in the last four or five years, it's absolutely exploded.

"If you look at the number of young black artists doing well, making a living, it's extraordinary. Five years ago it just didn't exist."

But the attention being bestowed on contemporary African art is a relatively new phenomenon. Auction house Bonhams says its New York sale last month was the first commercial auction dedicated solely to contemporary African art in the United States, and it says the UK's first auction only took place last year.

While auction house Phillips de Pury's Africa art sale and exhibition will take place on May 15 in New York. The sale will include works of contemporary art, photographs, design and editions which reflect the spirit of the continent.

Giles Peppiatt, director of African art at Bonhams, said these kinds of sales were still too rare. "In some ways it's remarkable -- here we are in 2010 and this is the first auction of its type in New York," he told CNN. "It's never been done before. Actually I was very surprised by that,"

But he says he's not surprised by the growing interest in African art. Bonhams says the auction has generated considerable buzz. Prince Yemisi Shyllon, who has an extensive collection of Nigerian art, was one of those in attendance.

Shyllon told CNN, "I don't promote Nigerian art in terms of the value. I promote in terms of the benefits and the joy it can confer to the world."

But monetary value is unavoidable at an art auction. About half of the 140 pieces at the Bonhams auction sold, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $92,000. The value of African art could increase as international interest develops and the buying pool expands.

"At the moment the majority of the collectors are people who have an interest or contact with Africa," said Peppiatt. "We aren't yet seeing these people buying these works without that connection.

"Look at the other markets -- no one buys a van Gogh because he's Dutch or because the buyer's Dutch. It doesn't matter where the artist was born or what nationality he was. But I think with the African art it still does matter. It hasn't yet broken into the international market."
Ghana's beads back in vogue

While the rest of the world is catching up with African art, the artists themselves continue to push artistic boundaries.

South African Lawrence Lemaoana was one of the artists exhibiting at last month's Johannesburg Art Fair. His work is all about challenging the traditional.

"I look at the ideas of stereotypes, and the idea of men sewing and the idea of how that's a feminine activity ... [and ask] how do we subvert that into something that's really not feminine? So I am sewing and I am making artwork that's quite edgy," Lemaoana told CNN.

"Artists are not limited to painting and traditional ways of making art. There are other possibilities of speaking a language and finding new and innovative ways of communicating."