ART in motion 32 THE FETISH IN AFRICAN ART Chicago—Two important Chicago galleries will present the fruits of their collaboration to the public this spring. From April 24–May 30, the Rhona Hoffman Gallery, which usually shows modern and contemporary art, will host Keeping Secrets: The Fetish in African Art. This special exhibition is organized in conjunction with the Douglas Dawson Gallery, which has specialized in tribal art for more than thirty years. The show will examine the production of fetishes in traditional African societies. These are a corpus of works that is as diverse in its forms as it is in the contexts in which the objects were used. Despite their importance and the fundamental role they played in the preservation of harmony and cultural values in traditional African societies, these pieces have often been misunderstood and little appreciated in the West. It will feature a selection of about fifty pieces, mostly from Western and Central Africa, and includes wooden sculptures, ceramics, textiles, and iron objects. This diversity should come as little surprise since the notion of the “fetish” is more conceptual than formal and does not relate to any particular type of object. On the contrary, the term can be applied to quite varied creations, whose main shared characteristic is that they are believed to act on the world of the spirits. VIEWS OF ANIMISM Paris—From April 9–29, L’Asie Animiste gallery will show Singulier et Art Brut dans l’Animisme (The Singular and Art Brut in Animism). This will be the third show produced by the gallery, which is located at 13 Rue Mazarine, and it will explore the relationship between tribal art and art brut, a term coined by Jean Dubuffet to describe artworks created outside of the conventional artistic environment which do not follow traditional artistic canons. It also encompasses the rudimentary, the naïve, and art produced by the mentally ill. Although tribal art is far from Dubuffet’s art brut in its forms, intentions, and the contexts in which it is created, sometimes there is an affinity in terms of its often-unknown authorship, symbolic dimensions, and its roughness and simplicity, which, in the case of certain objects, may erroneously appear clumsy to the Western eye. The exhibition will show masks, figures, and utilitarian and ritual objects from the Himalayas, Indonesia, and Africa. Left: Figure. Mendi. Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. © Cassandre Lavoix. Left: Mask. Sunda, Indonesia. © Cassandre Lavoix. Below: Bound figures. Zigua, Tanzania. © Douglas Dawson Gallery. Bottom: Altar mask. Nuna, Burkina Faso. © Douglas Dawson Gallery. Right: Boli. Bamana, Mali. © Douglas Dawson Gallery.
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