San petroglyph, South Africa. Image courtesy of the Weltmuseum (inv. no. 57585, info).
Another online museum database to bookmark and discover, is the one from the Weltmuseum (former Museum of Ethnology) in Vienna – the largest anthropological museum in Austria, which was already established in 1876. The museum’s collections comprise more than 200,000 ethnographic objects, 100,000 photographs and 146,000 printed works from all over the world, including part of James Cook’s collection of Polynesian and Northwest Coast art (purchased in 1806) and an important group of Benin bronzes from Nigeria. The intuitive online database is a work in progress and already includes 6646 records – you can explore them here.
Worth your attention is a group of early Liberian material collected by the museum’s former director Etta Becker-Donner (1911-1975), or the 117 San rock engravings collected by the Czech explorer Emil Holub (1847-1902) in Olifantsfontein – such as the one illustrated above. There are many more treasures to be discovered, such as the below Luba bow stand collected by Alfred Sigl in 1896, or the killer Chokwe staff in the celebrated Moxico style, collected by Antoon Erwin Lux in 1875. It does not get much better than these…
Luba bowstand, image courtesy of the Weltmuseum (inv. no. 56626, info).Chokwe staff, Angola. Image courtesy of the Weltmuseum. (inv. no. 132.130, info).
It was only two seconds, and it is in a sci-fi movie, so there’s a big chance you missed it, but I found it very cool to see the international pop star Rihanna dance wearing a chiwara headdress from Mali in the movie Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, written and directed by Luc Besson (2017).
Situated in the 28th century, Rihanna stars as Bubble, a shapeshifting Glamopod entertainer. Valerian, the main protagonist, needs her help rescuing his love interest Cara Delevingne from the Boulan Bathors. He meets her in a cabaret in Paradise Alley, the red-light district of Alpha, a space-traveling city inhabited by millions of species from thousands of planets. Valerian is treated to a performance by the enslaved shapeshifting alien by Jolly the Pimp. Got to love sci-fi!
What follows is a stunningly CG-assisted dance sequence in which Rihanna changes outfits about 25 times! One of the identities Bubble takes on is a bikini-clad amazone-like dancer wearing a chiwara headdress! Below is a behind the scenes look of this moment in the movie (which happens to have been the most expensive film ever made in France!)..
Kuddos to costume designer Olivier Bériot for incorporating a bit of African art in this futuristic space epic. In traditional Bamana society, women obviously wouldn’t be dancing with this headdress, and those feathers rather originate from Brazilian carnival than Africa 🙂
Installation view. Image courtesy of Kasmin Gallery.
A show I hate to miss due to current travel ban is “Between the Earth and Sky” as Kasmin Gallery, running until February 27th, 2021 at their New York City gallery. Luckily the online presentation of the exhibition is on point and can be explored here. This cool show brings together 22 “monolithic” sculptures from across times and cultures. The core is formed by contemporary artists such as Udo Rondinone and Bosco Sodi, with additional works by modern masters such as Ernst and Noguchi, but what interest us more is the fitting presence of a “selection of premodern sculptures”, “that embrace the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds”. Personally, I remain unconvinced if the term “premodern” is a proper nomenclature, but that’s another discussion – most of these cultures in their sustainable way of living within their environment were much more modern than us!
From Africa, we find a classic funerary post from Madagascar and a nice Kota from Gabon, while Oceania is represented by a couple of aripa hook figures from Papua New Guinea and an Abelam ancestor figure. Concerning the installation we read:
Guided by the architectural logic of the space, Between the Earth and Sky consists of an immersive installation of a field of vertical sculptures, highlighting both the universality and the diversity of the form in contemporary, modern, and premodern works of art. The poured concrete ceiling of the gallery is divided by 20 frustum-shaped skylights, forming a grid of 10 x 10 ft squares on the polished concrete floor below. Each square hosts one sculpture that draws a line of sight from the ground up toward the sky, creating connections between the object and the viewer, heaven and earth, and the cardinal directions.
Through the above link it is possible to make a virtual visit of the show. Personally, I think the juxtaposition works very well and the selection is neat. For the “premodern” selection Kasmin Gallery collaborated with Damon Brandt, art dealer and curatorial consultant – and son of the famous gentleman-dealer Alan Brandt (1923-2002). In 2015 Jonathan Fogel wrote about the latter:
Alan had a varied career. Born in Brooklyn, early on he ran a public relations firm that worked with Harry Belafonte, Mike Wallace, and television programs such as Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo. He was a prolific lyricist who wrote songs that were recorded by Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, and Tony Bennett, among many others, and he had a brief onstage acting career in the late 1960s. In 1960 he began managing Henri Kamer’s gallery at 965 Madison Avenue. By the late 1960s, he began dealing with African art in his own right from his apartment at 44 West 77th Street, and became an important source for major works of African and Oceanic art in New York City. In 1998, when he was seventy-five, his first play was produced Off-Broadway.
A bit late to catch the hype about this television series, but attentive viewers surely must have spotted that the Dothraki warriors from Essos in Game of Thrones put blankets on their horses that do look very Congolese! In fact, the costume designers were clearly inspired by the famous textiles from the Shoowa & Bushoong peoples, who were part of the Kuba Kingdom in D.R. Congo.
Karagwe quadruped. Image courtesy of the UMMA (#1985/2.91).
A public African Art collection in the US that had stayed under my radar, but does have quite some gems in it, is located at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. You can explore it here. The museum especially benefited from a large donation by Candis and Helmut Stern of mostly Congolese art in 2005. In 2014, through a $1.5 million gift, the Sterns also helped create a new curatorial position at UMMA: the Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African Art (info), now held by Laura De Becker – a fellow Belgian! De Becker is currently working on a reinstallation and doubling of the Museum’s space dedicated to African art, a project called “I Write To You About Africa” – read more about this exciting prospect here; it is scheduled to open somewhere this year.
Unibrow Vili nail figure (nkisi nkondi). Image courtesy of the UMMA, Gift of Candis and Helmut Stern, #2005/1.192)
