56 ABOVE: Seated figure, phemba. Yombe, DR Congo. Wood, glass insets. H: 24 cm. Private collection, Milan. ABOVE: Henri Matisse, Gourds, Issy-les- Moulineaux, 1915–1916. Oil on canvas. 65.1 x 80.9 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, inv. 109.1935. © 2017 Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. © H. Matisse Estate/DACS 2017. LEFT: Henri Matisse, Tête de Jeannette V, modeled in 1913, cast in 1954. Bronze. 57.7 x 20.8 x 29.5 cm. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Donated by the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1972. © Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. © H. Matisse Estate/DACS 2017. ABOVE: Mask. Baule, Côte d’Ivoire. Wood. H: 22 cm. Leonardo Vigorelli Collection. BELOW: Guardian reliquary figure, byeri. Fang, Cameroon. Wood. H: 40 cm. Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue. Matisse in the Studio LONDON—An exhibition opening late this summer will provide a window into Henri Matisse’s studio. Using the pieces he collected as a starting point, it will focus on the role they played in his own artworks. Thai Buddhist statues, Bamana fi gures from Mali, furniture and textiles from North Africa—objects from the four corners of the world were reinvented by the artist innumerable times. Although rarely of high monetary value, they are notable in that they inspired him to go beyond the limits of Western art. Through his African masks and sculptures, Matisse found new ways to depict human faces and forms. Objects from the Islamic world inspired the sensuous curves of his odalisques, and his simplifi ed language of signs is imbued with the precision of Chinese calligraphy and the geometry of African textiles. The exhibition juxtaposes these pieces with the paintings, drawings, and sculptures that in many cases they gave rise to. The exhibition can be seen at the Royal Academy of Arts August 5–November 12, 2017. The White Hunter MILAN—Until June 6, 2017, the FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea is examining Western prejudices and the Western vision of Africa and African art. The brainchild of Marco Scotini, the show features some sixty historic and contemporary artworks from across the continent, including pieces by Meschac Gaba, Samuel Fosso, and Yinka Shonibare. The exhibition is divided into fi ve parts and includes works from important Italian collections, as well as archival material detailing Italy’s colonial past. The fi rst part examines the 1920s and 1930s, the period of Italian colonialism. The 2013 fi lm Pays barbare by artists Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi is presented, and its opening quote, “Ethiopia, for this primitive and barbarous land, the hour of civilization has now come,” immediately sets the tone. The second part is devoted to traditional African art. Most notably, it includes masks and fi gures from Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, and the Congo. Another gallery features art nègre from the 1922 Venice Biennale, presented at the dawn of fascism. The show then revisits the Magiciens de la terre exhibition held in Paris in 1989, as well as the controversy that arose from it. The fourth part of the show deals with South Africa, examining practices of reappropriation, resistance, exclusion, hegemony, and homogenization. The fi nal section looks at how cultural differences become manifest. Several galleries here approach the subjects of identity, diaspora, and war. MUSEUM NEWS
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