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African art - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York
Art Journal, Spring, 1997 by Christa Clarke
In addition to the inclusion of northern African artistic expression, the exhibition's organizers should also be commended for their attempt to give greater recognition to the arts of eastern and southern Africa. Historically, these regions have been underrepresented in Western museum collections, which typically reflect early preferences for figural works from western and central Africa. With the gradual breaking down of Western distinctions between art and artifact, items of personal adornment and utilitarian objects - more commonly seen in eastern and southern Africa - have entered the realm of artistic appreciation. In the eastern Africa section, the exhibition included an elaborately beaded Iraqw skirt from Tanzania (Guggenheim cat. 20; Royal Academy cat. 2.41) as well as a selection of basketry and headrests from the region. The primary emphasis in this section, however, remained the human form: the exhibition design, for example, dramatically positioned a series of Konso and Bongo grave figures, accentuating their attenuated features [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. Of these figural works, the pair of funerary figures by a Vezo artist from Madagascar (Guggenheim cats. 24 and 25; Royal Academy cats. 2.31a and b) was particularly striking for its haunting sculptural presence reinforced by extensive weathering and dramatic abrasions of sand.
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Many pieces from South Africa were exhibited here for the first time, since Western institutions were previously unwilling to accept loans from South Africa under apartheid. A highlight of this section was the famed Lydenburg Head ([ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED]; Guggenheim cat. 31; Royal Academy cat. 3.10a-b), never before seen in the United States. Among the earliest known sculptural forms in southern Africa, the terra-cotta heads date from A.D. 500 to 700. Some of the more recent works exhibited reflect the decades of political upheaval and dislocation in the region. Beadwork created by Ndebele female artists, for instance, encodes messages of social protest in abstract, geo-metric designs. In the exhibition, the delicate appearance of a beaded train, or nyoka (Royal Academy cat. 3.35c), belied its power as a means of communicating Ndebele cultural identity in the face of oppression. Other forms of personal adornment demonstrated the inventive resourcefulness of artists with limited access to traditional media. A pair of Zulu earrings (Guggenheim cat. 43D; Royal Academy cat. 3.36d) translates abstract designs usually created in ivory or horn into the more recent media of vinyl used in flooring. Dating to the 1950s, these earplugs are also the most contemporary objects included in the entire show.
While the exhibition was expansive in its inclusion of the arts of the entire continent, the areas central to the established canon of "African art" - central Africa, the Sahel and Savanna, and western Africa - clearly dominated the show. Their prominence was underscored by the organization of the installation itself, which featured those sections (in addition to eastern Africa) in clear view on the ramp, while north Africa, Egypt and Nubia, and southern Africa were relegated to adjoining galleries in the Monitor and Tower buildings. Beginning with the central Africa section, figural works whose forms are more familiar to Western audiences were highlighted. For instance, the exhibition included a large number of minkisi, or power figures, embellished with nails, feathers, or other ritual additions, which are found in various cultures throughout coastal and southern Zaire. Some effort was made, however, to represent a range of objects in a variety of media. In addition to textiles by Kuba and Kongo artists from Zaire, this section featured an unusual Solongo stela (Royal Academy cat. 4.15) that, at over two feet in height, is one of the largest bas-relief carvings found outside the Nilotic cultures.
