SATURATED Dallas—Saturated: Dye-Decorated Cloths from North and West Africa, at the Dallas Museum of Art until October 58 12, 2014, focuses on the dyer’s art from North and West Africa, including the countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Drawn primarily from the DMA’s collection, this exhibition presents eleven dye-decorated cloths produced by traditional techniques and worn as garments or accessories. Before being largely supplanted by the introduction of European printed textiles in the nineteenth century, African textile designs were most often made with natural dyes on plain homespun cotton, wool, raffia, or other materials. Women were usually the dyers, and dye-decorated cloth was a major form of feminine artistic expression. NEW AOA GALLERY Honolulu—Early this year, the Honolulu Museum of Art—known as the Honolulu Academy of Arts until its 2012 merger with the city’s contemporary art museum— quietly unveiled a new gallery on the second floor of the museum’s original 1927 building. In a long, slope-ceilinged gallery, curator of contemporary art James Jensen has overseen the creation of a new installation of the arts of West Africa, the Pacific Islands, ancient Latin America, and Native North America. Now, for the first time, more than 160 selected works from the museum’s AOA holdings—many of them never before exhibited—are now on continuous view. Highlights of the collection include some remarkable masterpieces, among them an Olmec stone head from the first millennium BC, which is being shown publicly for the first time in more than forty years; two fifth-century BC terracotta sculptures from the Nok people of present-day Nigeria; a rare carved wood tino aitu ancestor figure from Nukuoro atoll in Micronesia; and an early twentieth-century Tlingit chilkat robe made by Anisalaga (Mary Ebbets Hunt), one of only eleven by this master weaver known to exist. While the arts of Africa and the Americas are newly represented as a permanent installation, those of the Pacific were previously featured but have been reinstalled with many heretofore-unseen objects. The museum’s collection has particularly strong representation of the arts of the peoples of Melanesia, especially the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. The Nancy Ellis Gallery of the Art of the Philippines was closed and used for storage during this renovation but will soon reopen without change. Look for a feature article on this collection in an upcoming edition of Tribal Art magazine. Above: Woman’s cover, axellal. Imazighen (Berber), Kabylie, Atlas Mountains, Northern Algeria. Late 19th century. Wool, cotton, dye. Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund. Center top: Prestige panel. Dida, Côte d’Ivoire. First half of the 20th century. Palm leaf fiber (raffia), natural dye. Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund. Right: Man’s robe, agbada. Yoruba, Nigeria. 20th century. Cotton, dye. Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund. Left: Woman’s marriage or ceremonial veil. Imazighen, Ida ou Zeddoute, Tafraoute area, central Anti-Atlas Mountains, Morocco. 1900–1930. Wool; natural dyes, including henna. Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund. Right: The reinstalled Art of the Pacific Gallery at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Image courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art.
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