A tribute to Roy Sieber: Part 2 - Biography

African Arts, Summer, 2003 by Christine Mullen Kreamer

Any serious collecting ... must come down to an aesthetic decision, which is what constitutes connoisseurship. (1)

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During his long, distinguished, and productive career as a leader in the study of African art history, Roy Sieber (Fig. 1) turned much of his attention to objects--their contexts and their aesthetic qualities as ways to understand "the premises and the logic that every society builds for itself" (Sieber 1977:156). For almost half a century, he used museum exhibitions to explore this concept. Indeed, he maintained that "The greatest acknowledgement of the aesthetic power of a work of art is that it can still move us when it is presented totally out of context in the highly artificial atmosphere of the museum" (Sieber 1971 [1959]:127). In the last issue of African Arts (Spring 2003), the first of a two-part memorial to the late art historian, I offered a broad overview of Sieber's life and accomplishments (Kreamer 2003). Here I consider his love of objects and his contributions as the consummate connoisseur of tradition-based African arts. As with the first introductory essay, this one will include insights generously shared by the Sieber family.(2) I hope that, taken together, these two issues of African Arts will indicate Roy Sieber's impact on the field of African art history, and, more importantly, convey the depth of the affection and gratitude felt for him. While his passing in 2001 was profoundly sad for all of us who knew and loved Roy, his lifetime of achievements and his enduring legacy in the field of African art history are cause for celebration).(3)

"Begin and end with the object."

Roy Sieber always spoke eloquently about the power of objects to move us as well as the peoples of file African societies within which they were created. He held that the arts "are symptomatic of cultural values and that they are for the most part oriented positively, that is, toward man's search for a secure and ordered existence" (Sieber 1971 [1959]:205). Actively rejecting Western notions of African art as "primitive" (Sieber 1968), he advocated an exploration and assessment of audience responses to works of art rather than a reliance oil culture-bound and largely Western definitions of art and aesthetics (Sieber 1973). Where specialized vocabulary for the arts seemed to be lacking in certain African cultures, Sieber suggested the possibility of an unvoiced aesthetic of broadly shared concepts as the basis for aesthetic evaluations (1971 [1959J:128-29). His emphasis on the social function of arts as a critical part of African aesthetic concepts further expanded consideration of African arts and aesthetics in context.(4)

Almost fifty years ago, Sieber urged us "to comprehend [African] sculptures in the context of the cultural commitments of the artist[s]" who created them, advice that remains relevant today (Sieber 1956). He sought to challenge Western perceptions of African art by focusing on specific types of African objects he referred to as "tough" (Fig. 3)--ones that were less visible in Western collections, such as lbibio masks depicting the disease gangosa, or tertiary yaws, which disfigures the face, or "fierce" Ekpo society masks with their blackened, encrusted surfaces and dramatic features.

Tough in conception, subject and form, they may be termed ugly or...fierce....Is the depiction of unpleasantness a reason for aesthetic rejection? Must an aesthetically successful work of art necessarily be beautiful or good?...It would seem that only in unfamiliar arts produced for inadequately comprehended uses by little understood cultures do we reject such uncomfortable images... [which] can be described as powerful, as fierce, but not as ugly, for there is neither an absence of beauty nor its conscious contrast. (Sieber 1990:342-43)

Sieber could have had the National Museum of African Art's Igala shrine figure (Fig. 4) in mind when he wrote of such "tough" works as "aesthetically successful, totally calculated, almost overwhelmingly powerful sculptures. They are truly awesome by intention" (1990:343). In his consideration of cross-cultural aesthetic concepts, Sieber sought alternatives, not oppositions that contrast good and bad, beautiful and ugly--borrowing what Robert Farris Thompson called "apart-phrasing"s to consider concepts that are not polar opposites but distinct and separate entities that are part of a continuum of aesthetic expression. He also emphasized what he felt was a collaborative process in understanding and appreciating African arts, one that involved "our [Western] aesthetic, their [African] authenticity and validity of the piece" (in Nyden 2000). Bringing those two perspectives to bear in considering the merits of individual works of art and understanding that aesthetic judgments are space- and time-bound were critical components in Sieber's approach to African art connoisseurship (Sieber 1993:3).

Opposite page:

1. Roy Sieber, 1966. Bloomington, November 8, 1966. Photo: Unnamed phrotographer, indiana University News Bureau. Courtesy of Indiana University Archives (99/075) Sieber poses amid west African masks at an African art exhibition tie organized at the Indiana University Art Museum.

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A tribute to Roy Sieber: Part 2 - Biography

African Arts, Summer, 2003 by Christine Mullen Kreamer

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