Gifts and Blessings: the Textile Arts of Madagascar

African Arts, Summer, 2003 by Rebecca L. Green

National Museum of African Art Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. April 14-September 2, 2002

Compared with the island's unique flora and fauna, the arts and cultures of Madagascar have largely been overlooked. When they are mentioned, they tend not to be included in the broader discussions about Africa. Thankfully, this situation is beginning to change. For example, in 1986 John Mack of the Museum of Mankind curated the seminal exhibition "Madagascar: Island of the Ancestors" (with companion catalogue, London, 1986), which brought the island's arts and cultures to the public's attention. In 1998 1 curated "Once Is Never Enough: Textiles, Ancestors, and Reburials in Highland Madagascar" for the Indiana University Art Museum (also with a catalogue, Bloomington, 1998). A forthcoming edited volume on the extensive Malagasy textile holdings at Chicago's Field Museum, to be published by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History; was previewed by an exhibition last spring at the Fowler Museum ("Wild Silk, Island Fibers: Rare Textiles from Madagascar"). Most recently, the National Museum of African Art firmly positioned Madagascar within the dialogue of African arts and culture with its exhibition "Gifts and Blessings: The Textile Arts of Madagascar," co-curated by Sarah Fee and Christine Mullen Kreamer

The exhibition was divided into six sections, beginning with a general introduction to the textiles. Tire other sections were dedicated to the historical role of cloth as political gift, with a particular focus on the relationship between highland Malagasy royalty and the United States government; contemporary textiles; related hands-on activities for visitors; contemporary clothing; and, finally, funerary textiles. The rooms, painted in light colors (sky blues, lavender, peach) to highlight the cloth, were full but not overcrowded. Additional objects, images, postcards, and historical pieces interspersed among the textiles provided a balance of two- and three-dimensional objects that held the viewer's interest. The large didactic labels and text panels, photographs, and photomurals greatly increased one's understanding of the contexts of the objects on display.

The show opened with the introductory panel "Gift of Cloth" in the Sylvia H. Williams Gallery and a beautiful burial shroud (lambamena) of indigenous silk and metal beadwork. One wall displayed barkcloth, raffia clothing, a photo box of sixteen historical postcards (Fig. 1), and texts that invited viewers to look closely and think carefully about the textiles and images. A case along the back wall held five large cloths and two long, narrow loincloths. Although most of the textiles were easily identifiable, numbering them would have helped connect them to their texts. A large three-dimensional ikat mosquito tent dominated the center of the room, and a case along the far wall held various raw materials, including cocoons and mulberry silk (spun and unspun, cultivated and uncultivated)-a nice addition, although specific materials were not clearly labeled.

The second room, "Objects as Envoys and Royal Gifts," clearly demonstrated the value of textiles as important political gifts and established a visible link between Madagascar and Washington, D.C., with the display of gifts and letters passed between U.S. presidents and Merina royalty in the nineteenth century. Gifts included a Singer sewing machine, a photo album of the United States, a Smith and Wesson gun, and a pen and pencil set presented to Queen Rasoherina and Prime Minister Rainilaiarivoy in 1867. In 1886 Queen Ranavalona Ill sent two large textiles, a small bone pin, and a lidded fiber basket to President Graver Cleveland to commemorate his election. Photographs of the President, Queen Ranavalona III, Prime Minister Rainilaiarivoy, and John Waller, the first African American consul to Madagascar (1891-I894), were augmented with documents pertaining to their political alliances: letters, a copy of an 1867 treaty of friendship, credentials of the first Malagasy mission to the U.S., and ledgers describing the mulberry-silk nineteenth-century textiles with brilliantly colored weft-float designs given to President Cleveland and later donated to the Smithsonian.

The third room, not identified by a label, addressed contemporary textiles. It included a traditional cloth from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem as a foil for contemporary shoulder wraps and photographs of cloth in use, as well as photographs of and textiles by two contemporary sources, Malagasy fiber artist Zoarinivo Razakaratrimo (called Zo) and Lamba SARL, an organization established by the Englishman Simon Peers to create textiles for export based upon nineteenth-century Merina cloth. Zo, who has shown nationally and internationally, makes wall hangings that incorporate natural materials such as leaves, cinnamon and other bark, and silk cocoons as well as found objects including phone cards, condom packages, power plugs, clothes pins, plastic spiral bindings, mirrors, safety pins, ear phones, and computer chips. The exhibition showed three of her works. Adaladalana (Craziness) is a large piece divided into four asymmetrical quadrants that engage one's tactile and olfactory senses with its combination of organic and fabricated materials (Fig. 2).