Shifting Lenses
DARTMOUTH—A new installation of the African collection
52
at the Hood Museum is presenting the ways in
which the aesthetic values and worldviews of different
African societies in the past are still relevant to the
contemporary social imagery of the vast majority of
people in Africa. Whereas some museums continue to
treat canonical African art as vectors of source cultures,
this installation emphasizes the individual autonomy of
the objects on view. The selection is organized around
six themes: “Figures,” “Parliament of Masks,” “Power
Objects,” “Transitions,” “Art of Small Things,” and
“Art of Every Day.” Curated by Ugochukwu-Smooth
C. Nzewi, Shifting Lenses: Collecting Africa at Dartmouth
will be on view until January 19, 2020.
Hearts of Our People
MINNEAPOLIS—Women have long been the creative
force behind Native American art. Presented in close cooperation
with top Native women artists and scholars,
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, on view at
the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, will be the fi rst major
exhibition of artwork by Native women. It will celebrate
the achievements of more than 115 artists from the
United States and Canada spanning over 1,000 years.
Their triumphs—from pottery, textiles, and painting, to
photographic portraits, to a gleaming El Camino—reveal
astonishing innovation and technical mastery.
The show was curated by Jill Ahlberg Yohe and Teri
Greeves working in consultation with a Native Exhibition
Advisory Board, a panel of twenty-one Native
artists and Native and non-Native scholars from across
North America, who provided insights from a wide
range of nations at every step in the curatorial process.
It will be on view June 2–August 18, 2019, and
is presented by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux
Community.
LEFT: Installation view of
Shifting Lenses at the Hood
Museum.
Image courtesy of the Hood Museum.
RIGHT: Power fi gure, nkisi
nkondi. Solongo style,
Kongo people, Angola or DR
Congo. 19th century.
Wood, mixed media. H: 55 cm.
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth
College: Purchased through the
Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W’18 Fund,
the William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A.
Jaffe Hall Fund, the William B. Jaffe
Memorial Fund, the William S. Rubin
Fund, the Julia L. Whittier Fund, and
through gifts, by exchange,
inv. 996.22.30233.
ABOVE: Tablecloth (detail). Sisseton Dakota. C. 1900.
Wool cloth, beads, brass, cotton.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, inv. 12/814.
Photo by NMAI Photo Services and courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art.
RIGHT: Ngumba fi gure. Fang, Gabon. Date uncertain.
Wood. H: 53.3 cm. Collection of Dr. Robert Horn.
Engaging African Art
FLINT—Dr. Robert Horn began collecting African art
more than fi fty years ago, and his collection spans
more than sixty African cultures, primarily from countries
in Western and Central Africa. The collection includes
masks as well as small- to medium-sized fi gures
representing various spiritual, social, and ceremonial
messages through ritual to status-related objects.
Engaging African Art: Highlights from the Horn Collection
at the Flint Institute of Arts until May 26, 2019,
showcases the quality and diversity of this collection
while at the same time demonstrating the rich diversity
of African visual expressions and cultures.
MUSEUM NEWS