The Metropolitan Museum of art, New York - new acquisitions

African Arts, Summer, 2001 by Alisa LaGamma

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Left:

Martin Rakotoarimanana, b. 1963
Malagasy Republic
Mantle (Lamba Mpanjakas), detail
1998
Silk; 274cm x 178cm (108" x 70.1")
Purchase, Rogers Fund and William B. Goldstein Gift, 1999 (1999.102)

Situated in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar represents a unique cultural crossroads of African and Indonesian heritage. This brilliantly hued and gorgeously patterned work captures the finest qualities of the island's most distinctive form of expression, the silk textiles that have been produced by Merina highlanders since precolonial times.

Merina weavers use a technique known as akotyfahana, produced on a horizontal, fixed-heddle loom with a continuous weft and warp. A second heddle produces supplementary floating-weft patterns, such as the abstract bird and vegetal motifs in this composition. Dyed silk was purchased from Arab and Indian traders until sericulture was introduced on the island in the early nineteenth century.

The Merina monarchy and nobility wore akotyfahana textiles as lamba, mantles draped on the body in a toga-like fashion. Other important historical contexts for lavish works of this kind were the splendid funerary shrouds placed in royal burials. Their value and prestige were such that they were also given as official presents to visiting ambassadors or sent to foreign heads of state.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, indigenous weaving was almost abandoned as less costly textiles of European manufacture were increasingly imported. A contemporary revival, this extraordinary work was created by the Imerina master Martin Rakotoarimanana.

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Left:

Marionette
Ibibio peoples, Nigeria
20th century
Wood, pigment traces; 59.9cm (23.6")
Purchase, Discovery Communications Inc. Gift and Rogers Fund, 2000
(2000.32a, b)

This finely rendered male Ibibio marionette is relatively naturalistic in form, with rounded muscular contours. To allow control of its movements, the maker would have inserted a rod through the back of the hollow figure.

Objects such as this belonged to a distinctive dramaturgical tradition in southern Nigeria. Ibibio marionette performances were at once a form of popular cultural expression and entertainment and an important vehicle for social commentary. The theatrical presentations for which this sculptural accessory was created would have been highly topical and would have sought to influence social attitudes.

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Right:

Leper mask
Bwa peoples, Burkina Faso
20th century
Wood, pigment; 88.4cm (34.8")
Gift of Thomas G.B. Wheelock, 1997 (1997.444.7)

Bwa plank masks are conceived to embody supernatural forces that act on behalf of the families that commission and use them. Clan elders carefully describe to the artist the patterns and iconography that enhance individual works, These are not merely graphic elements drawn upon for their aesthetic qualities; they are also symbols associated with oral histories taught to young initiates and inscribed upon their bodies. In Bwa culture certain socially marginal personages, such as foreigners, dwarfs, or lepers, are perceived to facilitate contact with the spirit world. Their representation in masquerades may be discerned through the overall performance rather than the mask's iconographic features. Contextual information for this mask was documented by Christopher Roy in the village of Boni in 1983.