Reinstallation at the Carlos ATLANTA—Newly reinstalled, the African galleries at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University are designed to provide fresh insight into African artistic 76 and cultural expressions. The museum’s African collection was founded in 1994 with a substantial gift by Georgia native William S. Arnett, who had long collected masks and fi gures from West and Central Africa, particularly from the various cultures of Nigeria, Benin (formerly Dahomey), the Cameroon Grassfi elds, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, the collection has grown through select acquisitions and gifts to also include objects from East and South Africa, including textiles, ceramics, and jewelry. The new installation refl ects the size and diversity of the African continent, expressing many aspects of the rich cultures of the continent, from personal identity, community entertainment, and communion with the divine to power, leadership, and even the tastes of ABOVE: Mask, von gla. Wè, Bété-Guere, Liberia. 20th century, probably 1970s. Wood, metal, hair, fiber, pigment, bullet casings. H (mask only): 16.5 cm. Michael C. Carlos Museum, inv. 1994.4.607, gift of William S. Arnett. © Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo: Bruce M. White, 2011. LEFT: Beaded bowl figure. Kom, Tikar, Cameroon. Late 19th–early 20th century Wood, fiber, beads, metal. H: 70.6 cm. Michael C. Carlos Museum, inv. 1994.3.3, gift of William S. Arnett. © Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo: Bruce M. White, 2006. Western collectors. While these artworks demonstrate important aspects of the worldviews and aesthetic values of their cultures of origin, their display within a gallery space necessarily removes them from their original context. To address this, the new installation provides tablets (mounted on West African iroko wood stands) so visitors can learn more about the works of art and the themes by which they are organized. Each object fi ts into multiple sections, and visitors are invited to experience each as an interconnected element rather than in isolation and, more importantly, as part of a larger conversation about material culture in Africa. More than 1,000 high-resolution images of these artworks are available in the Carlos’ online database. The Carlos will also present a new longterm installation of Native American basketry titled Coiling Culture: Basketry Art of Native North America, opening September 10, 2016, and on view until August 26, 2018. Baskets were one of the fi rst art forms in the Americas, with basket fragments found in California and the Southwest dating to 9,400 years ago. Over the millennia, native North Americans developed elaborate techniques and intricate designs worked in local materials, from sweetgrass in Florida to black ash in the Northeast and deer grass in California, among many others. These materials were sacred both to their makers and to those who used these special containers. So too was the way each was made with coiling, symbolizing for many groups the path of human emergence from inside the earth and the movement of the spirits between realms. This exhibition explores the intersection between material, making, and meaning in the fragile basketry art of the Southeast to the Southwest and up into the Arctic. MUSEUM NEWS LEFT: Large basket with checkerboard patterning. Ndeh (Western Apache). C. 1890. Willow, devil’s claw, Joshua tree root. H: 55.9 cm. Michael C. Carlos Museum, inv. 2015.037.001, anonymous gift. © Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo: Bruce M. White, 2015.
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