ART on view African Masters Art of Côte d’Ivoire 64 FIGS. 1 and 2: The sculptor Kuakudili and some of his works, 1934. The right-hand example is now in the Musée Barbier-Mueller (fig. 4). Photos: Hans Himmelheber. © Museum Rietberg, Zurich. FIG. 3 (lower right): Tame working on a deangle mask, 1960. Photo: Eberhard Fischer. © Eberhard Fischer. FIG. 4 (facing page): Mask, je or lo. Yaure, Côte d’Ivoire. C. 1925. Attributed to Kuakudili. Collected in 1933 by Hans Himmelheber. Musée Barbier-Mueller, Geneva. Photo: Studio Ferrazzini-Bouchet. © Musée Barbier-Mueller. strikingly beautiful and powerful sculptures and masks of some forty artists. Some of these creators are known masters from the past, while others were active at the end of the twentieth century, including four Ivorian artists: Emile Guebehi, Nicolas Damas, Koffi Kouakou, and Jems Robert Koko Bi. This ambitious project draws inspiration from the pioneering research of ethnologist Hans Himmelheber, who died in 2003 and to whom the exhibition and the catalog are dedicated. He had been interested in the art and artists of Côte d’Ivoire since the 1930s and was the first to pose questions that might seem simple and evident: Who were the artists who made these masks and sculptures of astonishing quality? What was their place in society? What were their ideals of beauty and how did they represent them in their works? In what conditions did they work in their ateliers? Searching for answers to these questions dominated his more than seventy years of research and By Lorenz Homberger This spring the Rietberg Museum in Zurich will hold an exceptional exhibition featuring more than two hundred masterpieces from museums and private collections around the world. The exhibition represents a departure from the beaten path in many respects insofar as its focus is on the artists who made these works, shedding light on the individuals hidden behind the artistic creations of Côte d’Ivoire and neighboring areas. Until quite recently, the role of the traditional artist in African society has generally been misunderstood. Sculptors were often seen as artisans who used their talents in the service of religious ritual. Their work has been defined by Western criteria of style, region, and iconography, thus fueling the notion that the art they produced was anonymous and interchangeable, rather than original creation. This exhibition seeks to put this idea to rest once and for all and for the first time brings together works by artists from among the most important West African artistic generations and traditions: those of the Guro, the Baule, the Senufo, and the Lobi of the Lagoon region. The role of the artist in society, his conception of beauty, and the transposition in his works are the main themes, explored through the
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