Art

 

Illuminating ‘Mosaic’

 

Decade of Collecting Sheds Light on Africa’s Artistic Scope

 

by Stephanie Kanowitz

 

For a museum to do a “best-of” exhibition seems almost redundant. Isn’t the point of a museum to present some of its genre’s greatest works at all times?

 

But with a permanent collection totaling about 9,500 pieces, the National Museum of African Art had to whittle things down. So it opted to put out its best and brightest from the past decade in an intricately put-together yet expansive show called “African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting.”

 

“The museum has wanted to highlight the journey that we’ve taken over the past 10 years with our different collectors and constituents and the choices that we’ve made in making purchases, as well as to highlight what goes into shaping a permanent collection to help people understand what shapes a museum,” said Karen Milbourne, curator of the exhibition, which will be on display throughout 2011.

 

To that end, the exhibit, which includes more than 100 pieces, features traditional, contemporary, modern and popular works encompassing a range of genres, from sculpture and painting to metalwork and more. Many are expected forms of African art, such as masks and two ornate late 19th-century ivory tusks from the Republic of Congo. But visitors are likely to find others more unexpected, such as the “fantasy coffins” — one shaped like an elephant by Ghana’s Paa Joe and another shaped like a Nokia cell phone by Samuel Narh Nartey, a student of Joe.

 

“In selecting [what to display], part of it was to show the extraordinary diversity and creativity of what is African expressive culture — that it includes Nokia cell phones and incredible works on paper by artists like Sokari Douglas Camp and classical sublime masks like a Khran [people’s] mask from Liberia,” Milbourne explained. “We really wanted to highlight that extraordinary breadth and depth that shapes the visual culture of the vast African continent.”

 

Indeed, just as the contemporary works are surprising, the traditional pieces are exceptional.

 

An early 20th-century headdress by Jewish Moroccans helped women conceal their hair after marriage, in accordance with Jewish custom. Made of silver alloy, glass, stone and animal hair, it rises in a peak with silver coins dangling along the forehead as two long, thick black braids cascade down each side.

 

“You can see in that case it’s something that is such an intimate, personal object, but the finesse and the artistry of the piece and that personal story I think is quite exceptional,” Milbourne said.

 

But Africa is always evolving, which is evident in the more modern works. Take Gerard Sekoto’s “Boy and the Candle,” an oil on canvas from 1943 that seems to truly be lit by the candle.

 

“The painting by Gerard Sekoto is such an important modernist work,” Milbourne said. “He’s one of the first artists from the African continent to study and work in Europe and become part of the modern continuum and is one of South Africa’s most significant artists.”

 

Africa is also a region of great dichotomy, such as its wealth and simplicity. For instance, a late 19th-century to early 20th-century fly whisk of wood, gold leaf, cloth and horse hair by the Baule peoples of Côte d’Ivoire helped to signify leadership. By contrast, Milbourne was careful to include works that offer insight into average people’s daily lives, such as a 20th-century baby bonnet by the Bura peoples of Nigeria.

 

“This really is a celebration of the full range — sewing machines made of wires and gorgeous old pendants,” which are all part of Africa’s artistry, Milbourne said.

Another outstanding work is the show’s centerpiece, which greets visitors at the exhibition’s door. “Toussaint Louverture et la vieille esclave (Toussaint Louverture and the elderly slave)” is a towering sculpture that Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow created in 1989 as part of a series commemorating the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The sculpture is of a man, Louverture, liberator of Haiti, in uniform, staring off with a determined look on his face as a woman kneels at his feet.

 

The show invites visitors to not just look at each artwork but to study it and ask questions about its origin, theme and larger context, both to the museum and to the continent of Africa.

“We chose that word [mosaic] quite purposefully because a mosaic is number one, beautiful, but two it’s something that’s a new whole made out of lots of little pieces. We tried to look for how when those pieces come together to illuminate, literally give light to, a new story.”

 

Milbourne also hopes the exhibit sheds light on Africa’s own still-developing story, and the ability of its artists to extract beauty from an ornate gold pendant or a briefcase created from discarded soda can aluminum sheets.

 

“I hope they learn an appreciation for the diversity that is Africa and the creativity that a baby’s bonnet can be made into a work of art just as a sacred work of art can. All of these are a way that we transform the world around us, and African artists, in their individual and collective efforts, have given rise to such an incredible range and quality of visions.”

 

Stephanie Kanowitz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

 

African Mosaic: Celebrating a Decade of Collecting
through Dec. 31
National Museum of African Art
950 Independence Ave., SW
For more information, please call (202) 633-4600 or visit http://africa.si.edu.