MUSEUM News 42 THE SPINIFEX PROJECT Munich—From March 28 to May 12, 2013, the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde hosted Spinifex- Künstlern aus der Great Victoria Desert (The Spinifex Art Project from the Great Victoria Desert). Produced in association with ARTKELCH Galerie Freiburg, this exhibition focused on the art of the Spinifex, one of the last nomadic peoples of the Australian desert. The creations of artists such as Simon Hogan, Roy Underwood, Anne Hogan, Myrtle Pennington, Nulbingka Simms, and Lennard Walker all presented to the German public the political dimension of Australian Aboriginal art practice, which is so intimately related to land and territory. The Spinifex—among many other indigenous communities—were once expelled from their lands and they continue to struggle to recover. Beyond this facet, however, Aboriginal painting is also art unto itself, expressing an aesthetic language that captivates with its visual power and inventiveness. Although the show is closed, the works in it are featured in an illustrated catalog. EARTH MATTERS Washington, DC—The first major exhibition to examine the conceptually complex and visually rich relationship between African artists and the land upon which they live, walk, and frame their days is presently on view at the National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Approximately 100 artworks are on view in five thematic sections, each providing a vantage point from which to examine the poignant relationships that Africans have with the land, whether it be earth as a sacred or medicinal material or as something to be exploited by mining or claimed by burial. Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, which can be seen until January 5, 2014, features the work of more than forty artists hailing from twenty-four African nations and spanning the time from around 1800 to the present. Each object relates in some way to notions of territoriality or means of access of resources within the environment and to the ways in which individuals and communities negotiate the complex relationships with the land beneath their feet and the earth at large. The objects range from traditional materials such as wood and terracotta to video and mixed-media installations. Five artists have taken the installation out of the museum by creating land art installations in the Smithsonian gardens. FAR LEFT: Power figure, nkisi nkondi. Yombe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, or Republic of the Congo. 19th century. African teak (Chlorophora excels), metal, feathers, pigments, earth, glass, textiles, mirror, claws. Musée royale de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren, Belgium, EO.0.0.22438. TOP LEFT: Storage vessel Kurumba, Burkina Faso. Mid 20th century. Terracotta. National Museum of African Art, gift of Saul Bellow, 81-10-1. LEFT: Mapping and memory board, lukasa. Luba, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Before 1884. Wood. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology, Collection of Herbert Ward, gift of Mrs. Sarita Ward, no. E323440. LEFT: Spinifex men working on a painting. © Spinifex Arts Project/ARTKELCH. BELOW: Byron Brooks at work. © Spinifex Arts Project/ ARTKELCH.
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