The words “African Art” are often thrown around as convenient catch all for what is actually a complex topic. However underlying those words are some rather large issues and one big question – what is African Art? Is African Art a cultural or historical designation? Is it geographical, as the most literal reading would imply? Or, due to the melanin in a person’s skin, is the art he or she makes always going to be designated as “African”? This is the hefty mountain which the Museum of Arts and Design attempts to climb with its exhibit, The Global Africa Project. The Museum of Arts and Design takes a new approach by inviting its visitors to ask “Where is Africa?”
Occupying three of the Museum’s five floors, The Global Africa Project covers a broad range of art and design media, including sculpture, installation pieces, posters, photography, fashion, furniture, textile work, basketry, lamps, architecture, two cars and even a book. These are organized, not by geographical region or artist but instead are loosely sectioned off into themes such as Transforming Traditions, Sourcing Locally, or Branding Content–where the art moves from a display of the Wu-Wear gear by the Wu Tang Clan to Keith Harring’s 1985 print Free South Africa.
It quickly becomes obvious that it is through the creation of their works that these artists explore the questions of what and where African Art is as well as what it means to be an African Artist. By juxtaposing different styles of art and t artists from around the world, the exhibit shows us just how many answers there are to the question of where Africa is. For instance, about his artistic journey Heath Nash has this to say, “I was informed that [my art] didn’t look African or South African enough. This led me to try and figure out what a South African product is and how to represent my feelings for South Africa through design.” The result is a set of four hanging lamps, vibrantly colored and covered in flowers made from recycled detergent bottles. His lights are featured in the Sourcing Locally section which explores contemporary African Art and its grounding in “amalgamation and recycling,” and although it is supposed to be the prominent theme of the section, this kind of creation process can be seen in art from other sections as well.
The only downside to the Global Africa Project is that its size really does live up to the vast implications of its name. The exhibit sets out to tackle what it considers a large amount of “psychic and physical space.” Due to the amount of art there is to see, the exhibit can very quickly become overwhelming. Luckily there is always a different piece of artwork to rescue the viewer from his or her fatigue and recapture interest every time the whole threatens to overpower its parts. Occasionally, this part is played by pieces not placed in the center stage of the gallery.
On the fourth floor, after a slightly redundant parade of furniture falling under the theme Competing Globally, Fred Wilson’s two pieces are a breath of fresh air. My particular favorite, tucked away in a corner and not immediately noticeable, is titled Iago’s mirror. Produced in a glass studio on the island of Murano near Venice, the mirror is multi-layered, ornately done – referencing the 18th century style of Venetian design – and completely black. About the piece Wilson says, “I am interested in all the western cultural meaning of the color black. Be it race or mourning, the complexity of the semantics reach back to Shakespeare’s time and are still relevant today.” Suddenly, with these pieces in the exhibit, our question of “where is Africa?” expands to include “when?” “African Art” can reference a fixed point in time, such as 18th century Venice, or it can be transcendent in time as Shakespeare’s characters of Othello and Iago evoke modern day issues of race.
Around the corner, Sheila Bridges plays with the concept of time and history as well with her textile, glass and plate designs. Here she takes the French Toile de Jouy pastoral fabric from the 1700’s and creates Harlem Toile de Jouy in which the white gentry are replaced with Africans as a satire on the African American experience.
The third floor is perhaps the weakest aspect of the exhibit, where the problem of exhibit fatigue is highlighted . Though it has stand out pieces such as a large Aunt Jemima bottle made entirely of beads, it shares half of the gallery with another exhibit; therefore, the space does not have the feeling of completeness found on the fourth and fifth floors. In fact, it feels slightly superfluous - which is dangerous considering the exhibit’s tendency to overwhelm. Unfortunately, the exhibit brochure only emphasizes this problem as it instructs the visitor that the exhibit can be found on the 4th and 5th floors and neglects to mention the 3rd floor. Because the exhibit has no clear ending or beginning and has an introductory panel on every floor, there is a risk that the third floor either becomes a not so spectacular end to what was a great exhibit or a slow beginning that doesn’t quite do justice to what is to follow.
And it is ironic that for the amount of material in the exhibit that it does just as Roberta Smith points out in her review of the show, leave out much of what is north of the Sahara. What she neglects to address is that by ignoring the countries which are largely influenced by the Muslim religion, in affect the exhibit explores more the concept of blackness as equating the concept of being African. Is not a Muslim woman in Egypt African too? Where I do agree with her is that the project should be ongoing, or recurring. Smith suggests that every four or five year the exhibit should be re-done to take a trans-media look at Africa. This would allow the chance to constantly reassess the change in what African Art and African influence on art and design is, and of course to work out the kinks and improve the exhibit.
In spite of these issues, the exhibit is a good one and definitely worth the time it takes to see it. With The Global Africa Project, the Museum of Arts and Design asks its viewers and participating artists a question which has no definitive answer and, as one explores the exhibit, only gets more complicated. Yet it seems to this viewer that this was their point: to remind us that, there is so much more in African Art, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your art history textbook.
The Global Africa Project, is on display at the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle until May 15, 2011. Lowery Stokes Sims, curator of the Museum of Arts and Design, and Leslie King Hammond of the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art are the Curators. The exhibit is sponsored by Robert Sterling Clark Foundation as a part of its International Cultural Engagement Initiative. For tickets and other information call the MAD at 212.299.777 or go online at www.madmuseum.org
No comments:
Post a Comment