FEATURE
92
FIG. 11 (above):
Face mask, n’gre.
Bété artist. Bas-Sassandra
District, Côte d’Ivoire.
Late 19th century.
Wood, metal, cloth, cowrie shells.
H: 33.5 cm.
National Museum of African Art,
Smithsonian Institution, gift of Mr.
and Mrs. Brian Leyden and museum
purchase, inv. 2013-21-1.
Photo: Franko Khoury.
to lead battles. Its expression is one of political
power won through coercion and disruption.
MOVING ARTS
The penultimate section of the new installation
will explore the experiential realities of objects.
Rooted in the practices of performers, this gallery
will look at how both objects and ideas can
be the subjects, objects, and products of wideranging
and often global exchanges.
Few of Africa’s arts are static. Musical instruments
vibrate with sound during performances;
masquerade arts dance in multisensory settings;
stunning weights and currency objects circulate
along trade routes; sculptures are marched in
processions or manipulated to reach their full
capabilities; and, today, paintings get loaned for
exhibition and videos fl icker across time. Africa’s
artists cross borders and their infl uences travel.
Individuals and communities migrate, follow
commercial opportunities, and share ideas, materials,
techniques, and styles. The works of art
in this gallery will refl ect such ongoing journeys
across time and space—and move the installation’s
dialog into the here and now.
This gallery will be one of several spaces within
Visionary to contain large, dense display cases of
objects representing particular genres. Designed
to evoke the experience of “open storage,” these
cases allow visitors to experience a broad range
of variation within a given form. “Moving Arts”
will feature three such cases featuring currencies,
goldweights, and ivories. The ivory “dense
display,” in particular, will showcase a number
of collection highlights, including a stunning,
delicate spoon by a fi fteenth-century Edo artist
(fi g. 12) once owned by American diplomat and
Dumbarton Oaks founder Robert Woods Bliss.
This was carved for export to Europe and refl
ects a fusion of local styles and European features.
Another signifi cant object, an ivory staff
fi nial in the form of a canine by a Kongo artist
(fi g. 13), may represent a ritual leader’s search
for hidden knowledge. Its inlaid eyes refer to the
ability to see into the spirit world, while its cowrie
shell necklace symbolizes the power to cross
between this world and the next.
“Moving Arts” also features a large selection
of videos, including digital arts new to the collection
as well as fi lms documenting performances.
color and light scales, for example—will encourage
visitors to understand universal formal elements
all visual artists address. Label text, along
with the museum’s own Looking at African Art
guide, will further direct visitors to discover visual
elements specifi c to African objects.
If visitors up to this point have been engaged
primarily in a more typically passive art museum
experience—that is, visually scanning objects,
reading labels (hopefully), or sharing images
and selfi es online—it is hoped that this “Looking
Lab” will encourage closer interaction with
objects.
Among the artworks presented here will be a
mask with a garish glare produced by a Bété artist
(fi g. 11), presented in the context of a discussion
of expression. Such a mask is deliberately
unsettling. Embodying powerful spiritual forces
associated with the forest, it may have appeared
among Bété communities to settle disputes or