THE INNER EYE 89 FIG. 8 (facing page, left): Hermaphrodite fi gure. Dogon, Mali. 18th–early 19th century. Wood. H: 69.9 cm. Private collection. FIG. 9 (left): Mother and child fi gure for the Gwan Association. Bamana, Mali. C. 1279–1395. Wood. H: 96.5 cm. Ex. James Willis, San Francisco. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the 2013 Collectors Committee, with additional funds provided by Kelvin Davis and Bobby Kotick, inv. M.2014.19. Photo © Museum Associates/ LACMA. FIG. 10 (right): Multi-headed fi gure, Sakimatwimatwi. Lega, DR Congo. Wood, feathers, paint, cordage. H: 32.3 cm. Ex Jef van der Straete, Brussels; Jean Gambier, Brussels; Dr. Michel Gaud, Saint-Tropez; Jay Last, Beverly Hills. Fowler Museum at UCLA, gift of Jay T. Last, inv. X2004.17.7. Photo © The Fowler Museum at UCLA. FIG. 11 (below): Installation view of The Inner Eye showing a line of Bamana chi waras. Photo courtesy of LACMA. commit an offense by making tangible the belief that nothing escapes these spirits’ panoptic surveillance. The visual is often a conduit to the invisible, and seeing implies unseen insights. Works associated with death and afterlife offer statements about the power of art to both transport us to the past and propel us toward the future. They demonstrate how the invisible is made visible as contact is instigated and maintained with another world. “Seeing Beyond” constitutes a kind of shrine to commemorate family members and loved ones who have passed on to become benevolent ancestors. Reliquary guardians of Fang and Kota peoples of Gabon once sheltered the souls of the departed (fi g. 17), and Malagasy commemorative couples serve as remembrances of important individuals and their legacies. Each speaks to the ways that cultures cherish those who came before, and each creates a pathway between worlds that can transcend loss to restore hope and resilience. PAST AND FUTURE The open installation plan and low-key didactics of The Inner Eye mean that each visitor will “see” different aspects of the exhibition, but one thing that everyone will take home with them is that this is a formidable array of more than 100 masterpieces of African art. Some may be surprised to fi nd these at LACMA, which has not until recently had an especially active African art program. However, it represents currents that have been developing behind the scenes for many decades and are now reaching fruition. The largest art museum in the Western United States, LACMA is a relatively recent institution. Its parent institution, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art had been established in Exposition Park in 1910. In 1961, this was divided into the Los Angeles County Museum of History and Science (now the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) and LACMA. In addition to retaining the original building, the Natural History Museum also kept most of the original institution’s large and largely ethnographic collection of Native American objects, archaeological artifacts from the ancient Americas, art of the Pacifi c Islands, and African art as part of its anthropology and archaeology
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