MUSEUM NEWS
66
Music at their Fingertips
BARCELONA—The Museu de la Música of Barcelona
and the Fundación La Fontana together are known for
their collections of more than 2,000 traditional musical
instruments from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas.
They continue to add to these treasures with periodic
acquisitions. Sharing a common vision and goal, they
have recently reached an agreement whereby the public
museum will devote one of its permanent galleries to the
presentation of a selection of the Fundación La Fontana’s
instruments, which will be rotated annually to highlight
different topics. The fi rst show will open to the public on
September 19, 2019, and remain on view through the
end of August 2020. Titled Música als dits. Sanses africanes
de la Fundación La Fontana, it presents thirty of
La Fontana’s most remarkable lamellophones and highlights
the specifi cs of a type of musical instrument that is
ubiquitous within the African musical landscape, and it is
presented here in its many different forms.
Healing Power
LEIDEN—A new exhibition at the Volkenkunde Museum
in Leiden explores one topic from the perspective
of all continents and time periods. From the Arctic to
South America, contemporary artworks such as those
by Damien Hirst, Joseph Beuys, and Marina Abramovic
are shown side by side with traditional items relating
to the subject of healing. Shamanism, popular remedies,
sorcery, medicine, beliefs, and protective amulets
reveal the many ways in which peoples have confronted
illness, both physical and psychological, through the
production of objects and paraphernalia the beauty or
symbolic power of which has resulted in their being
displayed in Western museums. The show can be seen
until January 5, 2020.
LEFT AND RIGHT: Four
lamellophones. Tabwa, Luba, and
Chokwe; DR Congo. Dan; Côte
d’Ivoire.
Wood, metal, fi ber.
Fundación La Fontana,
inv. FI.1990.01.13, FI.2007.01.07,
FI.1994.01.05, and FI.1994.01.04.
.
ABOVE: Campagnebeeld.
Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden.
© Helende Kracht. Photo: Hamid
Sardar.
RIGHT: Shaman’s coat.
Northeast Siberia.
1800–1803.
Leather, iron, tendon.
© Collection National Museum of
World Cultures Foundation.