Beaded Ceremonial Art of the Ndebele at The Israel Museum

The African art collection at The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has recently been enriched by a generous donation of beaded Ndebele art. On view through December 31 is a special exhibition highlighting ceremonial body ornaments and initiation dolls made by Ndebele women for use in rites of passage and as status symbols. The intricate beadwork features common motifs such as stylized flora, houses, telegraph poles, and electric light bulbs, reflecting the Ndebele woman’s domestic concerns, her hopes for a good harvest, and her aspirations for an idealized home.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of The Israel Museum

Vessels and Containers at Jacaranda Tribal

A new online exhibition at Jacaranda Tribal presents a showcase of exquisite African vessels and containers.  Highlighting the diversity of form and myriad aesthetics brought to these utilitarian objects by a wide variety of traditional cultures from across the continent, Jacaranda's newest assemblage features refined lidded vessels from the Lozi of Zambia and the Hima of Rwanda; a graceful and elegant South African snuff container carved from a single piece of horn; a remarkable North African powder flask; and much more.  The images below present a selection of the exhibition's highlights.  Visit the Jacaranda Tribal website for detailed information on these items and many more.

Lidded bowl  -  Lozi, Zambia  -  First half of 20th century

Milk vessel  -  Hima, Rwanda  -  First half of 20th century

Meat bowl  -  Nyoro, Uganda  -  19th century

Lidded vessel  -  Shi, D.R. Congo  -  First half of 20th century

Lidded basket  -  Sotho, Lesotho  -  First half of 20th century

Wooden vessel  -  Tsonga or Matabele, Zimbabwe  -  Late 19th or early 20th century

Snuff container  -  South Africa  -  19th century

Powder flask  -  Morocco or Tunisia  -  19th or early 20th century

Visit the Jacaranda Tribal website

The Art of Daily Life Enters its Final Week

Regarded as the finest showcase of Southern African art in recent years, The Art of Daily Life will enter its final week at the Cleveland Museum of Art on February 19. Through some seventy-five works from American private collections and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, the exhibition resplendently celebrates the stunning formal diversity and cultural significance of Southern Africa’s artistic heritage. Despite having enjoyed a degree of growing interest and appreciation over the past three decades, the art of indigenous Southern African societies has long been largely neglected. The Art of Daily Life puts the works of these traditions––which so subtly bridge the planes of the mundane and sacred––under a spotlight to receive the recognition they so unreservedly deserve. 

Visit the official website here.

Staff attributed to the "Baboon Master"   Tsonga, South Africa   19th–20th century

 

Prestige vessel   Nguni, South Africa   19th–20th century

Woman's beaded apron   Nguni, South Africa   19th–20th century

Pipe with anthropomorphic bowl   Sotho or Nguni, Lesotho or South Africa   19th–20th century

Headrest    Shona or Tsonga, Mozambique, South Africa or Zimbabwe   19th–20th century

Images courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Africa meets Africa - Ndebele Women designing Identity

An Ndebele Resource!

Africa meets Africa: Ndebele Women designing Identity focuses on the history and visual cultural expression of the Ndzundza and Manala Ndebele.

In this project, the authors explore the knowledge contained in the sophisticated design landscape of Ndebele women, which has informed their homestead design beadwork and has informed their homestead design, beadwork and painting. They look at the design language as art, but also in terms of the history and heritage that produced it. Going one step further, they also mathematically explore the elegant symmetry and proportion of Ndebele design.

A fifty-two minute documentary film by Guy Spiller (script by Andre Croucamp) introduces Zimbabwean Ndebele speaker Siphiwe Khumalo, who comes across Ndebele painting for the first time in Johannesburg, and then investigates the people who make the colorful designs. She talks with to such academics as Ndebele historian Dr. Sekibakiba Peter Lekhgoathi of the History Department of the University of the Witwatersrand, and Professor Peter Rich, who studied Ndebele homestead architecture. Siphiwe undertakes a journey to rural KwaMahlanga, Mabhoko and the surrounding area, to the homes of the master painters Esther Mahlangu and Francinah Ndemande, as well as attends contemporary Ndebele cultural festivals. Finally, she interviews Mathematician Dr. Chonat Getz, who explores the remarkable symmetry and proportion in the design language that Nbebele women use in their homestead architecture and painting.

The sixty-four page book (in full color), designed by Anina Kruger, unpacks the history of the Ndzundza and Manala Ndebele in more depth.

The book is available for purchase on Africa Meets Africa website, www.africameetsafrica.co.za.

The Africa meets Africa Project explores the southern African cultural heritage in the belief that educators and students in South African schools can find solutions to contemporary learning problems in the knowledge and skills contained in familiar forms of cultural expression around them. This integrated approach to learning serves all of South Africa's educators, as current curriculum statements call for a process of holistic learning - and specifically for an engagement with the cultural context of learning areas such as the Arts, Mathematics, Language and History.

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

Santa Cruz Bank Hosts African Art Collection

Since opening its doors in 2004, Santa Cruz County Bank has taken on an unlikely second role -- an art museum.

The bank has about four exhibits a year, and while only local art has been displayed in the past, the bank now welcomes its first international exhibit.

"Circle of Life" is a collection of works from seven Zimbabwean artists. The art, which is currently on display, will remain up until July 9, and a reception will be held May 7. Mary Anne Carson, director of the Santa Cruz County Bank Arts Collaborative, heard about the collection, owned by Jess and Laura Brown, and contacted the couple in the hopes they'd be interested in sharing their art with the community.

"We like the public to have artwork that hasn't been seen before," said Carson, who is also the bank's senior vice president and director of marketing.

There are about 60 pieces in the exhibit, including sculptures and the paintings. The paintings are now up in the Aptos, Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville offices, while the sculptures are on display in the bank's downtown Santa Cruz location.

Carson said the paintings are full of life and vibrancy, a stark contrast to the country's current economic and political climate.

"I was very impressed with the work and how colorful and vibrant and joyous the works are," she said.

The artwork creates an intersection where people can gather.

"It's our way of connecting the bank with our community and welcomingthe community into our bank," she said.

Jess Brown, the collector as well as the executive director of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, began volunteering in Zimbabwe in 1998. While there, he helped bring small-scale farmers together to form larger communities that could work together to yield more efficient and productive crops.

"The economy and politics is really bad over there," Brown said. "I really believe in these people and I want to help them"

His collection includes more than 100 pieces, ranging from paintings to sculptures. All of the pieces in the exhibit are for sale, and all of the money made will go directly back to the artists.

The bright colors and interpretation of life illustrates the hope they have as a people, he said.

"There's such vibrancy and joy in the paintings," he said.

Curator Joan Blackmer was touched by the sincerity in the work.

"I could feel the heat of the sun, I could feel the connection to the community," she said of the paintings. "There was a depth to how the figures were relating to each other."

The sculptures in the exhibit are Shona sculptures, an ancient process that enables spirits in the stone to be acknowledged in a more recognizable form. The sculptures on display in the bank combine ancient and contemporary principles, she said.

"They're really building on their cultural sensibilities and philosophies," she said.

Working as the curator for the bank's art collaborative has allowed Blackmer to be part of an emerging scene while sharing her love of art.

"It's exciting because it's developed into part of the arts community," she said. "Art enriches our lives."

Brown and his wife have long collected local art, but he feels a special connection to the people of Zimbabwe. Their art shows hope and inspiration, as well as the deep connection to community and culture. Most people who have seen the collection have been impressed with the spirit, he said.

"You smile," he said. "You feel good about it."

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

By: Justine DaCosta

Shona Knife - Zimbabwe, New Acquisition

A rare and beautiful ivory Shona knife.This type of knife was found among the Shona, and similar ones among the Sotho and Tswana, all in southern Africa. The sheaths were made of two pieces of wood, or in this fine example, a front of ivory and a back of wood. The front and back were bound together with braided wire, leather or fiber. The surface is covered with intricate geometric designs and enhanced by the patina of wear.

Wood, ivory, brass wire

Height: 12"