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MUSEUM news ABOVE, SECOND FROM RIGHT: Mask, so’o. Hemba, Uruwa region, DR Congo. Wood, pigment, iron. H: 29 cm. Shown in Face of God. ABOVE RIGHT: Mask. Zande (?), Ubangi, DR Congo. Wood, pigment. H: 29.5 cm. Shown in Face of God. BOTTOM RIGHT: Vessel depicting a person holding grain. Moche, Peru. © MNAAHP, 126. INAH. RIGHT: Incensario. Maya, Yucatan, Mexico. AD 1250–1527. © INAH. Museo Regional de Antropología. Palacio Cantón, Mérida, Yucatan. BELOW: Ball player. Jaina, Campeche, Mexico. AD 600–900. © INAH. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico. CONGO MASKS IN CHINA Guandong—An important exhibition is presently at the Guangdong Museum. Titled Face of God: Rare Masks from Central Africa, this intriguing show was produced under the supervision of Brussels art dealer and researcher Marc Leo Félix. During the course of its tour it will be shown at several other Chinese museums: the Nanjing Museum, the Gansu Provincial Museum, the Yunnan Provincial Museum, and, finally, at the Henan Museum, concluding in September 2017. The event will allow Chinese audiences the opportunity to appreciate some 120 masks, fifteen of which retain their complete fiber costumes, along with a selection of twelve musical instruments on loan from the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale in Tervuren and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the sounds of which accompanied the masks. Two comprehensive catalogs, one in Chinese and the other in French and English, accompany the exhibition and make for stimulating reading, with enlightening essays by David Binkley, Arthur Bourgeois, Manuel Jordán, Constantine Petridis, Julien Volper, and Marc Leo Félix. MOCHE AND ITS NEIGHBORS Lima—The Museo de Arte de Lima in Peru is currently showing Moche y sus vecinos. Reconstruyendo identidades (Moche and Its Neighbors—Reconstructing Identities), a fascinating exhibition that will be on view until August 14. It sheds light on the mechanisms through which identity was constructed in the Moche vision of the world through an examination of the relationships, both peaceful and bellicose, that Moche civilization engaged in over time with neighboring Andean groups. Some eighty terracotta, metal, and stone artworks representative of the artistic traditions of the Moche, Recuay, and Cajamarca that have been drawn from a variety of collections (including those of the Museo Larco and the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú) are on display. These works refer to mythical heroes, ancestors, and common enemies, the memory of whom was celebrated in ritual practices, thus contributing to the formation of a sense among identity of the Moche people. MAYA BEAUTY Berlin—Organized by the Berliner Festspiele/ Martin-Gropius-Bau in collaboration with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) as part of a cultural collaboration project for 2016, the exhibition Die Maya—Sprache der Schönheit (The Maya—Language of Beauty) presents more than three hundred artworks from the Maya culture, including a number of Mexican national treasures. Maya cosmogony and this millenniumold civilization’s conception of beauty are the focus of the show, and they are eloquently revealed through the treatment of the body, one of the main subjects of the art of this culture. Stone sculptures in the round, sumptuously carved architectural elements, paintings on terracotta, and jade mosaics all feature an abundance of bodies, not only human, but animal and deity as well. While naturalistic in many ways, the symbolic nature of Maya art becomes apparent in the meanings embodied by the clothing, ornaments, coiffures, and other elements that these figures wear. Combined, these symbols provide keys to understanding Maya social, political, and religious organization. This resolutely aesthetic exhibition can be admired by viewers at the Martin-Gropius-Bau until August 7.


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