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BELOW: Tripod vessel with parrots.
Comala style, Colima, Mexico. 300 BC–AD 500.
Terracotta with red slip.
Collection of the Museum of the Red River.
Photo courtesy of the MaBee-Gerrer Museum.
West Mexican Pottery
SHAWNEE, OKLAHOMA—Ancient West Mexico was
home to a cultural tradition that rivaled its contemporaries
as well as later cultures throughout Mesoamerica.
The elites of the region were frequently buried in
specially constructed shaft tombs that included several
subterranean rooms. These tombs were often fi lled
with an incredible amount of ceramics. Some were
simple household vessels that may have held food
for the deceased to use in the afterlife. Others were
much more elaborate and were in the shape of plants,
animals, or people. A little-known but remarkable collection
of these ancient West Mexican ceramics is held
by the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, Oklahoma.
This museum opened in 1974 as a repository for local
archaeological digs, but its collection rapidly diversifi
ed, and a new purpose-built facility is currently under
construction that will greatly expand its exhibition
space. In the meantime, much of its West Mexican
collection is on display at the Mabee-Gerrer Museum
of Art in Shawnee, 200 miles to the northwest. Titled
Occidente: West Mexican Pottery from the Museum
of the Red River, the exhibition will be on view until
June 23, 2019.
ABOVE:
Barkcloth painting.
Mbuti; DR Congo.
Mid 20th century.
Fiber, pigment. 71.4 x 45.1 cm.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art, the
Mary Ruth Weisel Endowment for
Africa, Oceania, and the Americas and
gift of Robert T. Coffl and in memory of
Mary Hunt Kahlenberg,
inv. 2018.50.21.
Photo: Robert Coffl and, Santa Fe.
In Dialogue with the Forest
MINNEAPOLIS—To make barkcloth, traditionally
used for clothing, Mbuti men collected pieces of the
inner bark of fi g trees and pounded them until they
were thin and pliable. Mbuti women decorated the
surfaces with intricate designs, using twigs and their
fi ngers to apply dyes made from plant saps and charcoal
powder. The abstract paintings express the shapes
and motions of the forest, with the motifs referring to
paths, webs, insects, and hunting nets, among many
other things. These vibrant patterns also refer to the
noises of the rainforest and to Mbuti music.
An exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
until November 3, 2019, features fi fteen of these elegantly
painted barkcloths dating from the mid twentieth
century. Excerpts of Mbuti songs and recordings
of the rainforest, played in a continuous loop, create
an acoustic ambiance for the paintings. The barkcloths
featured in In Dialogue with the Forest were formerly
in the collection of the late Mary Hunt Kahlenberg in
Santa Fe and were acquired by the museum in 2018.
RIGHT:
Dog effi gy vessel.
Comala style, Colima,
Mexico. 300 BC–AD 500.
Terracotta with red slip.
Collection of the Museum of the Red
River.
Photo courtesy of the MaBee-Gerrer
Museum.