African Tribal Ceramics Exhibition in Chicago

The Douglas Dawson Gallery, a Chicago-based gallery specializing in ancient and historical non-Western art, is set to open a new exhibition of African ceramics on Thursday, 24 April 2009. This will be the gallery’s fourth major exhibition on the subject.

While much research remains to be done, African ceramics have been getting more attention of late and have emerged as a new and dynamic area of collecting. Ceramics offer an alternative to the new collector as better-known African tribal artifacts, such wood sculptures and figurines, have become increasingly rare and expensive.

The gallery has already contributed significant scholarship to the under-researched field and has produced another catalog for the forthcoming show.

In addition to the show’s opening and the production of the catalog, the gallery has invited William Itter, long time African ceramics collector and Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Indiana University, to speak. Professor Itter has built one of the most comprehensive collections of African ceramics in the world and is an expert in the field. The talk will be held Tuesday 12 May at 6.30pm at the gallery.

Dori Rootenberg

www.JacarandaTribal.com

Here to Stay, at the Neuberger

For those unfamiliar with that hidden gem called the Neuberger Museum, below is portion of an article by Benjamin Genocchio from the January, 2009 New York Times:


So much attention is focused on temporary exhibitions throughout the region that we often forget that many museums are constantly collecting wonderful things. Every now and then we get an opportunity to sample the best of these acquisitions through collection shows like the two currently at the Neuberger Museum.

The Neuberger received its first donation of African art when it opened back in 1974. Since then, further significant donations and occasional acquisitions have turned the museum into a major repository of African art. To reflect this, in 2007-8, the museum reinstalled 83 of the most beautiful works from its collection, along with 17 long-term loans, in a larger space with specially designed display cases, cabinets and columns. For those who have not yet seen the exhibition, here’s some encouragement: It looks spectacular.

The works are grouped according to geographical areas from northern to southern Africa, or the other way around depending on which end you enter the show. But within that arrangement the museum’s African art consultant-curator, Marie-Thérèse Brincard, has brought out certain subjects and themes, including masks and headdresses; symbols of political office; and the human figure. Lots of wall labels and text help you identify what you are looking at.

The virtue of thematic groupings is that they help illustrate connections between art and artists across the continent. For instance, several headdresses, masks, amulets and other ritualistic objects here represent animals believed to have symbolic powers in African cultures, among them the antelope, snake and the crocodile. Two undated headdresses from Mali — each of which represents an antelope and is made of wood and fiber — are especially evocative and beautiful.

But just as importantly, the thematic groupings remind us of something else: that in Africa, with almost 1 billion people speaking more than 1,000 languages spread across 57 countries, culture and art differ from place to place.

Compare, for instance, about two dozen tiny wooden figures, each carved by a different artist, representing ancestors, family members and gods from various regions of Africa. An extraordinary diversity of styles and facial features is evident among the figures, which are installed together in a pyramidlike display toward the end of the show.

Elsewhere in the exhibition is an unusual, beautifully carved wooden equestrian figure from Mali, dating from the late 19th or early 20th century. Horse-owning was a sign of privilege and power in West Africa, suggesting that this sculpture might represent a wealthy village priest, headman or possibly even a foreign invader, warrior or emissary. Either way, it is a visually striking work of art.

“African Art Reinstallation,” continuing, at the Neuberger Museum of Art, 735
Anderson Hill Road, Purchase.
Information: neuberger.org
or (914) 251-6100.

The museum is a short ride form New York City and I highly recommend a visit.

Daniel Rootenberg
Jacaranda Tribal

BEYELER MUSEUM EXHIBITION

A must see show comes to an end on May 24, 2009.

Titled Visual Encounters - Africa, Oceania and Modern Art, the exhibition in Basel, Switzerland is the subject of a special issue in the Spring 2009 Tribal Magazine.

The Fondation Beyeler exhibition centers around art works from Africa and Oceania. Our own selected group of sculptures will be enriched by about 180 outstanding loans from over 50 public and private collections. Each of the thirteen exhibition spaces focuses on an African or Oceanian cultural region, emphasizing its unique character. These extra- European works of the highest quality and global significance are juxtaposed with masterpieces of classical modernism from the Beyeler collection. The exhibition sheds light on the visual force and sensuous presence of the works on view, the source of the unceasing fascination they exert on people from all walks of life around the world.

Daniel Rootenberg
JacarandaTribal.com

Lempertz Tribal Art Auction

25 April 2009 marks the annual Lempertz Tribal Art Auction in Cologne, Germany. Lempertz is one of the most well recognized art auction houses in Europe and the oldest family-owned one in the world. It has a rich history in the tribal arts field.

189 lots will be auctioned off at the upcoming auction. Those interested may see the collection at the auction house in Cologne during the coming week and in Brussels the following week.

Preview in Cologne

Tuesday 14 April - Friday 17 April

10 am - 1 pm and 2 pm - 5.30 pm

Saturday 18 April

10 am - 4 pm

Preview in Brussels

Tuesday 21 April – Friday 24 April

10 am - 6 pm

Saturday 25 April

10 am - 1 pm

The highlight of the auction is Lot 183, a Fine and Important Mangbetu Container that is estimated to fetch between €40,000 and €60,000. The Mangbetu are a culturally sophisticated tribe located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This base of this cylindrical container takes the form of a round traditional Mangbetu stool. Its center is formed from bark and its base and the wooden lid is a finely carved human head with a heart-shaped face, pointed chin, a small 
protruding mouth, a slender 
nose and round convex eyes. The container represents the elegant face of a 
Mangbetu woman sitting on a title 
stool, wearing the typical basketry 
disc on her hair.

In addition to the Mangbetu container, there are several other lots of particular interest including Lot 40, a Fine Lobi/Birifor Pair of Figures estimated between €32,000 and €38,000.

Lot 51, a Fine Senufo Staff estimated between €20,000 and €25,000.

Lot 54, a Fine Baule Mask estimated at €36,000.

And Lot 60, a Fine Baule Female Figure estimated between €34,000 and €38,000.

Stay tuned for the results and our auction summary after 25 April.

Dori Rootenberg

www.JacarandaTribal.com

16TH NEW YORK AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 2009 New York African Film Festival, presented under the banner “Africa in Transition,” takes an introspective journey across the African continent with films that create a vision of Africa's future through a deconstruction of its past.

It has been 15 years since South Africa’s first all-race democratic elections. In mid-April of this year, South Africa will go to the polls for the fourth time since the end of Apartheid. With Nelson Mandela long retired, a new generation of leaders governs the country and grapples to maintain the grand ideals that drove the struggle against Apartheid. It is both the best of times, and the most challenging of times!

The films in this year’s New York African Film Festival speak to these challenges. A centerpiece of the festival is Jihan El-Tahri’s Behind The Rainbow, which probes the history of the governing African National Congress party. Director Ralph Ziman presents a new South African Scarface with his irreverent gangster movie, Jerusalema; meanwhile Triomf, by veteran director Michael Raeburn, focuses on South Africa’s white poor. Rounding out the focus on South Africa is the artists collective, Filmmakers Against Racism, which produced a series of short films in response to the xenophobic incidents that rocked South Africa in 2008.

The festival also offers an introspective look at Africa through new contemporary works. It spotlights three up-and-coming female Kenyan filmmakers: Lupita Nyong’o (In My Genes), Judy Kibinge (Killer Necklace), and Wanuri Kahiu (From A Whisper). Meanwhile, the 21st century reality of young African asylum seekers within Europe and Africa is explored in Area Boys and Paris à tout Prix. This year’s new directors join veterans across the continent in configuring a new vision of Africa’s future.

Veteran filmmakers Jean-Marie Teno and Mahamat Saleh Haroun are back with films that, like those of the new generation, question the purpose and direction of African filmmaking. With Sacred Places, Teno asks African filmmakers who their audience is – and who it should be. Haroun surprises us with a comedy about the Diaspora (Sex, Okra and Salted Butter), which highlights the importance of his own African audience.

This year’s festival recognizes the journey into Africa’s future with coming-of-age tales L'Appel des Arènes, Bronx Princess and Nora, which follow young people who reclaim their cultural legacies to create new opportunities. Fighting Spirit and Yandé Codou expand on this idea by exploring the lives of well-known historical figures who have influenced generations.

This intersection of past and present is a theme that will be further explored in 2010's festival, as the New York African Film Festival reflects upon 50 watershed moments in African history that still affect winds of change today

Recent Acquisitions: Gertrude Hance Collection

We recently added some very unique new acquisitions to our website. Several of these were profiled in the March, 2009 Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles (E.A.C.) Newsletter "Tribal Soul, Modern Eye” such as the Zulu Prestige Vessel below, but we wanted to mention a few more of the highlights, including those from the Gertrude Hance collection.

Gertrude Rachel Hance served for many years as a Presbyterian missionary to the Zulu peoples in Natal, South Africa. Ms. Hance was born in 1844 in the small town of Brookdale, Pennsylvania. She travelled to South Africa with the American Zulu Mission when she was only 26 years old and remained until 1899. If you are interested in learning more about her travels and experience as an intrepid American missionary, Hance published a book in 1916 called The Zulu Yesterday and Today: Twenty-Nine Years in South Africa. The book is out of print but can be found at select libraries or online at AbeBooks.

Ms. Hance was an extraordinary woman and we have several select objects from her fine collection of material culture from the region such as these beautiful baskets and snuff containers illustrated below.

Stay tuned as we will be adding and exhibiting additional pieces from this collection over the coming months.

Masterpieces of African and Oceanic Art from Barbier-Mueller Museum at Metropolitan Museum

An exhibition featuring exceptional works of African and Oceanic sculpture selected from the extensive holdings of the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, one of Europe's preeminent private collections of non-Western art, will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 2. Presenting more than 35 works—most never before seen in the United States—African and Oceanic Art from The Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting will explore the wide spectrum of artistic creativity from two distinct regional traditions that have profoundly influenced world art.

It was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva.

The Barbier-Mueller collection of African and Oceanic art was founded in the 1920s by Josef Mueller, a pioneering collector of modern and non-Western art, and is continued by his son-in-law and daughter Jean Paul and Monique Barbier-Mueller. Their desire to share the collections with a wider audience culminated in the opening of the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva in 1977. Representing more than eight decades of their collecting, the exhibition will reflect the legacies of their connoisseurship.

African Art
Twenty-one works from western, central, and eastern Africa have been selected to illustrate both the range of the continent's artistic creativity and the discerning eye of the collectors. Among these, an idealized female head in fired clay is a tribute to the art of portraiture developed by sculptors between the 11th and the 15th century in the ancient city of Ife, in present-day southwestern Nigeria. A series of iconic masks includes an exceptional work created by a Teke master (Republic of Congo), whose brilliant use of color, geometry, and symmetry ignited the imagination of artist André Derain, one of the previous owners of the work. The technical virtuosity and inventiveness of West African metalsmiths are epitomized by a magnificent Malian ornament of the 13th-15th century in the form of a male torso; this unique piece synthesizes miniaturized detail with bold abstraction.

Oceanic Art
The Oceanic works in the exhibition exemplify the breadth of creative achievement by artists from across the Pacific. They include figures, masks, and decorative art from Polynesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Indonesia, and other regions, in media ranging from wood and stone to more fragile materials such as bark cloth and delicately carved turtle shell. Among the works on view is a boldly carved portrait of a chief from the Batak people of Sumatra, mounted on a fantastic creature, which served as a supernatural guardian. Other highlights include a rare wood sculpture from Easter Island that once belonged to the pioneering modern sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein and a stunning female figure from the Micronesian island of Nukuoro remarkable for its elegant lines and strikingly minimalist conception of the human form.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue.