January
24, 2003
African
Forms Comes to the Art Museum
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This
Cameroon hat made of straw and feathers is one of 400 handcrafted
African objects, dating mostly from the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, that will be on view in African Forms,
an exhibition at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum January
30 through March 14.
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Chances
are there's a coffee cup on your desk as you read this. Maybe
it's made of cardboard and, like coffee cups across America
today, destined for the trash can. Or maybe it's a sleek
steel commuter cup. Either way, it's probably not handmade.
We Americans purchase most of our household objects off the shelf;
they're mass produced, each one exactly like millions of
others. Our cups, our bowls and spoons, our jewelry and furniture—even
the high-end items that signify wealth and status—are not
often handcrafted, or one-of-a-kind.
By contrast, the utilitarian
objects in African Forms, an exhibition opening at the
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum January 30, are unique works
of art. The exhibition, presented in conjunction with Black History
Month, presents more than 400 handcrafted African objects, dating
mostly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Made from
gold, wood, leather, silver, ivory, raffia, brass, beads, feathers,
clay, and other materials, the objects in African Forms
represent 156 ethnic groups from across the African continent.
African Forms comes to Mount Holyoke from the Museum for
African Art in New York and is the first exhibition to present
such a broad stylistic and geographic range of African objects.
Curated by Frank Herreman, director of exhibitions at the Museum
for African Art, it is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue
written by Marc L. Ginzberg, from whose collection Herreman selected
most of the objects.
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Zulu
gourd bottles from South Africa that are decorated with
brass wire
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African figurative
sculptures and masks have long been studied and exhibited in the
West, but utilitarian objects have received less attention. "It's
been a real revelation for all of us working on this exhibition,"
says Wendy Watson, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum curator. "So
often when looking at African art we concentrate only on masks
and figural sculptures and we forget the remarkable quality and
diversity of utilitarian objects like stools, textiles, jewelry,
weapons, shields, and musical instruments. The subtlety of design,
variety of materials, and exquisite workmanship must be seen in
person to be truly appreciated."
In his foreword to
the catalogue, textile designer and crafts expert Jack Lenor Larsen
notes that in utilitarian objects, "the constraints of function
have guided the maker's hand, resulting in a sense of direct
and inevitable rightness." That "rightness" of
design resonates throughout African Forms. It's there,
for example, in a set of Rotse spiral-weave baskets from Zambia,
whose dark brown zigzags and patterns of triangles stand out handsomely
against a lighter straw background. These baskets are so sound
they will hold their shape "even when squeezed with full
strength," Ginzberg notes in the catalogue. The exhibition
includes baskets from several other ethnic groups, including six
made by the Tutsi, whose baskets are considered to be the finest
in Africa.
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Rotse
straw spiral-weave baskets from Zambia
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Skillful design and
craftsmanship abound in African Forms. The excellence of
Zulu artisanry, for example, is evident in several small bottles
made from hard-shelled gourds, which are decorated with thin brass
wires forming crescents, triangles, circles, and leaf shapes.
The striking contrast between the bright wires and the dark, lustrous
surfaces of the gourds gives these bottles a sumptuous quality.
According to the catalogue, they are so well constructed that
even after years of use the brass wires have remained in place.
The range of objects,
styles, materials, and techniques in African Forms amply
demonstrates the richness and variety of African material culture.
There are bright red berets worn by married Zulu women, made of
human hair and cotton; intricately carved wooden spoons, no two
alike; a red feathered Cameroon hat (pictured on front page) worn
by the tribe's chief and members of his court; sinuous Zulu
dance wands and walking sticks made from a beautiful two-toned
teak called kiaat; shields made of wood, painted hide, and wicker;
and elegant ivory bottles, decorated with black bands and circles,
which were used by the Fur people of Sudan for storing kohl. The
numerous wooden stools and headrests, some strikingly simple in
form, others structurally more complex and decorated with carvings,
beads, and brass tacks, are reason enough to see the exhibition.
Some of the textiles
on exhibit are from Mount Holyoke's permanent collection;
they were presented to the art museum by Roda and Gilbert Graham,
whose personal
collection of West African textiles was shown at the museum in
1997. African Forms also features several outstanding examples
of Kuba fabrics from Zaire, including the cut-pile cloth sometimes
called Kasai velvet. These cloths were made by inserting fine
raffia through the fabric, then cutting the fibers short with
a sharp knife to create a soft, velvetlike texture; subsequently,
they were embroidered as well. Due to the complexity of their
construction, Kuba cut-pile cloths could take as long as a year
to complete. They were not often worn by their owners but instead
functioned as symbols of wealth and prestige.
African Forms
will remain on view through March 14. Related events include a
gallery talk by collector Marc Ginzberg at 4:30 pm on Thursday,
February 13, followed by a reception. Balla Tounkara, a griot
and master kora player from Mali, West Africa, will perform during
the reception (the kora is a stringed instrument made from a calabash
gourd and cow skin with a sound akin to that of a harp). Tounkara's
music has been featured on Good Morning America and Radio France
Internationale; the Boston Globe has called it "multicultural,
powerful, and strikingly original." At 4 pm on Friday, February
7, Rebecca Gearhart. assistant professor of anthropology at Illinois
Wesleyan University, will give a talk titled "The Swahili
Art of Life: Artists and Expressive Culture on the Kenya Coast"
in Gamble Auditorium. These events, and the exhibition, are free
and open to the public. The museum is open Tuesday–Friday,
11 am to 5 pm, and weekends, 1 to 5 pm. For more information,
call x2245.
The
counter is
5,769
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