Collecting Art, Collecting Memories
SAN FRANCISCO—Twenty-fi ve compelling works recently
added to the collection of the Asian Art Museum—
including expressive indigenous carving, jewelry,
textiles, Spanish colonial devotional statues, postwar
genre and landscape paintings, and works of contemporary
art—are among the artworks that have been
brought together for a special exhibition that relates the
fascinating and complex stories of the Philippines. Philippine
Art: Collecting Art, Collecting Memories reveals
the Philippines’ role as a center of artistic exchange and
innovation, where artists with their own indigenous religions
and traditions were exposed to new ideas from
the trade between China and India. The expansion of
Islam to the archipelago, and later the long periods of
Spanish and American colonialism, have made the arts
of the Philippines unlike those from anywhere else in
the world. On view until March 11, 2018, this exhibition
is the result of more than a decade of study and
collecting by the museum’s curatorial team.
RIGHT: Magdalene Odundo
(British, born Kenya, 1950),
Symmetrical Variegated
Form, 1990.
Burnished and carbonized terracotta.
Maxine and Stuart Frankel
Foundation for Art, Bloomfi eld
Hills, MI.
80
ABOVE LEFT:
Central panel of a blanket,
kumo (detail).
T’boli people, Mindanao,
Philippines. C. 1950.
Abaca (banana fi ber). 56 x 386 cm.
Asian Art Museum, gift of Jack and
Milka Wigfi eld, inv. F2009.31.1.
ABOVE:
Ceremonial deity, bulul.
Ifugao, Luzon Island,
Philippines. C. 1930.
Wood, shell. H: 41.3 cm.
Asian Art Museum, Filipino Fund for
Acquisitions and Museum Purchase,
inv. 2013.2.
Threads of Time
ATLANTA—The Michael Carlos Museum is showcasing
its impressive textile collection in Threads of
Time: Tradition and Change in Indigenous American
Textiles. The exhibition, which can be seen until December
17, 2017, explores the breadth and depth of
indigenous American fi ber arts ranging from weavings
in cotton and camelid hair to featherwork and items
made from plants. The museum’s permanent collection
contains more than 700 examples, of which 149
are on display, many for the fi rst time.
Fiber arts were of the highest importance among
many of the indigenous cultures of the Americas. The
exhibition explores how these beautiful and complex
textiles embody the traditional values, materials, and
ideas of their respective indigenous cultures while also
embracing new techniques, imagery, and types of objects
as they changed over time. For example, values
embedded in the Quechua language spoken by the
Inca and millions of their descendants can be traced
in the textiles of the Andes, even as guitars, horses,
and other Western elements entered the artistic vocabulary.
These new elements make the textiles no
less legitimate, but rather emblematic of an evolving
culture.
Universal and Sublime
ATLANTA—Until October 15, 2017, the High Museum
of Art is presenting an exhibition of terracotta
vessels and related works by renowned artist Magdalene
Odundo (British, born Kenya, 1950). Universal
and Sublime: The Vessels of Magdalene Odundo
traces the trajectory of her work over the course of
three decades, from its genesis in the early 1980s
through her most recent innovations, including new
works created especially for the
exhibition. Odundo’s art has become
immediately recognizable
over the years for its distinctive,
sensuous forms. Her ceramics synthesize
artistic traditions ranging from Greek and
Roman pottery to Elizabethan costumes to
the art of modern masters Henri Matisse
and Amedeo Modigliani, to the vessels that
African women have made throughout the
centuries to carry and store water.
TOP and LEFT (detail):
Woman’s shoulder mantle,
lliklla, with guitar motifs.
Bolivia. 20th century.
Camelid fi ber, other fi bers.
Michael C. Carlos Museum, gift of
Nicholas Pisaris, inv. 2009.43.2.
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