Africa: Capolavori da un continente

African Arts, Winter, 2003 by Silvia Forni

The catalogue Africa: Capolavori da un Continente (368 pp., 272 color illustrations, EUR 68 softcover) is published by ArtificioSkira in Italian only. it contains essays by Ahmadou Kourouma, Stefano Malatesta, Ezio Bassani, Omotoso Eluyemi, Stefan Eisenhofer, Ferdinando Fagnola, Jean-Louis Paudrrd, Paul Guillaume, Maria Grazia Messina, Anne-Marie Bouttiaux. Also available from ArtificioSkira are two small booklets (32 pp., color, EUR 8) containing excerpts from the catalogue and selected images. The first one, Quando Dio abitava a Ife (When God lived in Ife), presents the poem by Ahmadou Kourouma; the second, Gli antenati di Picasso (Picasso's Ancestors), features the 1936 essay by Paul Guillaume.

(1.) Other African art exhibitions in Italy have also been curated by Bassani, who is one of Italy's most prominent and internationally known scholars of African art. In 1984 he was able to bring to Florence the exhibition "Treasures from Ancient Nigeria," organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts; in 1989 he curated "La grande scultura dell'Africa Nera" (Great Sculpture of Black Africa) at Forte Belvedere, again in Florence; in 2000, after the acquisition of his collection by the city of Milan (see note 3), he curated "Arte dell'Africa Nera: Una collezione per il nuovo Centro delle Culture Extraeuropee" (Art from Black Africa: A Collection for the New Center of Extra-European Culture). The 83 pieces featured in that exhibition were also the core of the 2002 exhibition "Africa Nera: Arte e cultura" (Black Africa: Art and Culture) organized by the Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna. In addition to the African sculptures, the Bologna show included objects and manuscripts that testified to the early contacts between Africa and Italian travelers and missionaries, and to the presence of various African objects in the collections of Renaissance courts.

(2.) The show is the outcome of a two-year project sponsored with great enthusiasm by Turin's main public and private cultural institutions. Its organizers and promoters include the City of Turin, the Fondazione Torino Musei, Artificio Skira, and the Compagnia di San Paolo

(3.) Many of the pieces also come from Bassani's own collection, recently sold to the city of Milan and now part of the Civiche raccolte di arte applicata e incisioni of Gastello Sforzesco. They were acquired for a new Center for Extra-European Cultures that will occupy the buildings of the former Ansaldo factory.

(4.) To further enhance the sense of mystery, certain sections of the exhibition feature music specially composed by the Italian composer Nicola Campogrande. While this is undoubtedly an original idea for a display of African art, it is difficult to understand the relationship between the music and the pieces, and the connection seems rather arbitrary and misleading.

(5.) The seemingly recent date of the quote from Fagg's book Nok Terracottas can be misleading, as it refers to the re-issue of his book, which was originally published in 1977.