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

Tribal Art London 2014

The only London show specializing in tribal art is getting a makeover this year. It is being renamed Tribal Art London and will henceforth be held at Mall Galleries, where it will include twice as many participants as previous years. This should also double the chances that its attendees will be able to find the masks, figures, textiles, ornaments, and ethnographic photographs they are looking for. Books and publications will also be available, and Tribal Art Magazine will have a presence at the event as well.

More information can be found at the fair's official website.

TEFAF 2014

The European Fine Art Fair will present its 26th annual edition in its traditional home of Maastricht on March 14–23. Excellence in art from all world regions and historical eras will be the order of the day, as ever. Representing the traditional arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at this year's TEFAF will be a distinguished group of dealers including Galerie Claes, Galerie Bernard de Grunne, Galerie Entwistle, and Galerie Meyer.

For more information, visit the official TEFAF website.

Winter BRUNEAF IV

The fourth edition of Winter BRUNEAF will be held on January 22–26. A distinguished group of international dealers will converge once again in the Sablon arts district of Brussels to present a marvelous array of traditional works from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas.

For more information, visit the official BRUNEAF website.

Image courtesy of BRUNEAF

Tribal Art Sale at Zemanek-Munster

Auctioneers Zemanek-Münster of Würzburg will present their 75th sale of tribal art on November 30.  The extensive array of lots will include fine works from across the world, spanning traditional carvings from Africa, Oceania, Indonesia, Asia, and elsewhere.

View the online catalogue.

Image courtesy of Zemanek-Münster

Escultures Musicals

Through April 21, 2014, the Museu de la Música in Barcelona presents a sampling of 130 pieces from the Fundación La Fontana’s magnificent collection of musical instruments, which encompasses 2,000 objects from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. Created by Helena Folch-Rusiñol and her husband Alejandro Maluquer, its volume, diversity and artistic value make this collection a prime international example of musical heritage conservation in Spain. 

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Museu de la Música

San Francisco Tribal

From October 25–27, the sixteen-member dealer group San Francisco Tribal will hold its annual group show at the Fleet Room of Fort Mason Center, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. Artworks offered will include a wide array of African, Oceanic, pre-Columbian, Asian, and Indonesian sculpture, masks, jewelry, and textiles. This show always reveals unexpected treasures at rational prices. 

For more information, visit the official SF Tribal website.


Image courtesy of SF Tribal

Een Huis vol Indonesia – De Liefkes Collectie

Ending its run tomorrow at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkerkunde is Een Huis vol Indonesia – De Liefkes Collectie (A House Full of Indonesia – The Liefkes Collection), an exhibition honoring keen-eyed collector emeritus Frits Liefkes, who was also a curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and who left nearly 1,000 objects from all over the Indonesian Archipelago to the Leiden Museum in 2010. The objects, ornaments, and weapons of gold, as well as the textiles, furniture, and ritual objects presented, are grouped together in three categories: body ornaments, spatial decoration, and the sacred and ritual sphere. All of the objects testify to the great aesthetic refinement of the cultures in this part of the world, ranging from Aceh in the west to Irian Jaya (Indonesian New Guinea) in the east.

View the exhibition's official website.

Image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden

J’arrive, J’aime, Je m’en Vais – Pierre Loti l’Ambigu Exotique

Through September 29, 2013, the new Atelier Martine Aublet at the Musée du Quai Branly will host a show devoted to the unique and fascinating Pierre Loti (born Julien Viaud). J’arrive, J’aime, Je m’en Vais – Pierre Loti l’Ambigu Exotique (I Arrive, I Love, I Leave – Pierre Loti, the Ambiguous Exotic) is an homage to this late nineteenth-century literary ambassador of exoticism. He was a cosmopolitan dandy who cultivated extravagance and was fascinated by the foreign cultures he encountered in the course of his travels as a naval officer. Conceived by Claude Stéfani, curator at the Municipal Museums of Rochefort, the exhibition includes archival documents, photographs, clothing, and all manner of personal effects. 

View the exhibition's official website.

Image courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Philippines, archipel des échanges

On view now at the Musée du Quai Branly is Philippines - Archipel des échanges, an exhibition that  brings together a selection of some 300 unique works of art from public collections in the Philippines, America, and Europe, as well as from private collections. Based on the geography of the archipelago, the installation encompasses two curatorial visions, one turned towards the mountains, the other looking out to sea, both presenting a civilization deeply affected by the central theme of exchange.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Buckle -  Cagayan

Ritual box  -  Ifugao

Ceremonial textile  -  Mindanao

Spoon with figural finial  -  Ifugao

Rice god, bul'ul  -  Ifugao

Warrior gear  -  Bagobo

Images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

The Amsterdam Trail

On May 19–20, Amsterdam's Spiegelkwartier will host The Amsterdam Trail 2013. Galleries with Asian and international tribal art will be open throughout the weekend to display their recent acquisitions. Contemporary artists will also be displayed alongside ethnographic works. 

For more information, visit the event's official website.

TEFAF Maastricht 2013

An event not to be missed by connoisseurs of art and antiques, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), running March 15–24, will feature scores of international art dealers presenting an unimaginable range of works from all world regions and time periods. A strong presence from the world of tribal art will be provided at the venerable Maastricht fair by Anthony Meyer, Entwistle, Alain Schoffel, Bernard de Grunne, Galerie 1492, and Lucas Ratton. 

Visit the official TEFAF website.

Un artiste voyageur en Micronésie, l'univers flottant de Paul Jacoulet

The Musée du Quai Branly will open an intriguing new exhibition on February 26. Un artiste voyageur en Micronésie, l'univers flottant de Paul Jacoulet explores the work of the noted French printmaker, who traveled to Japan in 1899 and would ultimately spent the greater part of his life there. While in Asia, Jacoulet traveled to Korea, China and Micronesia, which he visited numerous times to paint portraits of the inhabitants. Through his engravings and drawings, he represents the Micronesian men and women he encountered in a sensitive and aesthetically distinctive way that is at once intimate, stylish, and ethnographic. 

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Ainu - Antenati spriti e orsi

As part of the celebrations for the centenary of Fosco Maraini’s birth, the Museo delle Culture in Lugano and the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin have organized a temporary exhibition about the Ainu people. The exhibition displays sixty-two photographs taken by Fosco Maraini among the Ainu on Hokkaido island between 1938 and 1940, as well as in 1954, 1963 and 1971. There is also a series of objects belonging to the Ainu material culture.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Muzeo Nazionale della Montagna

Jewelry from the Roof of the World

On now at the Fondation Baur in Geneva is Jewelry from the Roof of the World, an exhibition devoted to ornaments from Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Northern India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Sourced entirely from the collection of Colette and Jean-Pierre Ghysels, these astonishing works reveal peoples, civilisations, and cultures whose memory is gradually fading. They convey also the passion and perseverance which took the Ghysels to every continent of the planet in their search for exquisite jewelry, always guided by two basic criteria: quality and beauty. Seduced by the richness of the ancestral traditions of Asia, they have unceasingly assembled these witnesses of vanishing worlds.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Fondation Baur

Quand le corps se fait parure

Entering its final month on view at the Musée du Cinquantenaire in Brussels is Quand le corps se fait parure, an exhibition examining the art of body modification and adornment in traditional cultures around the globe. The installation explores these practices as a type of language that integrates individuals into their social and cultural environment. Bodies are tattooed, scarified, pierced, painted, stretched or adorned, all of which practices demonstrate the social position of the individual and their links with their community. Amazonian body painting, nose pendants of Papua New Guinea, moulded skulls of the Amerindian peoples, and Chinese Miao earrings are just a few of many examples of this special form of physical communication on display in the exhibition.  On view through October 28.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Musée du Cinquantenaire