Praise Poems

Politics & Social Sciences

McClusky, Pamela

Anthropology

Seattle Art Museum

Ancestral Modern explores the extraordinary transformation in Australian Aboriginal art that began in the 1970s. Instead of making art primarily for each other-whether painted or inscribed on rock walls, on the ground, on bark, or on bodies as part of ceremonies-artists began rephrasing their practices to inform outsiders about the complexities of their cultures and the remarkable lands that Aboriginal communities have managed for centuries.
Many of the paintings in Ancestral Modern initially appear abstract but communicate surprisingly specific observations about places and people, flora and fauna, and Aboriginal history. In three wide-ranging essays and illuminating discussions of fifty individual works, the authors consider how deceptively simple means yield richly multilayered meanings. What appears to be a geometric maze turns into the path of ancestral beings establishing features of the landscape. Canvases resembling maps record memories of sacred ceremonies. Dazzling linear patterns conjure up leaves blown across a windswept desert, and herringbone hatching designates clan identities. Along the way, this collection offers many new visions of Australia-peering underground to see yams grow, trekking over vast salt lakes, following the trail of a blue-tongued lizard, and encountering a lightning-spitting serpent in swirling water.
Two Australian and two American curators each contribute a distinct perspective on this collection of over one hundred artworks that span the Australian continent and the varying approaches to art pursued by diverse Aboriginal communities. Acrylic paintings from the desert, bark canvases from the north, and ochre-painted canvases from the west are joined by new uses of fiber, clay, and photography. Complementing the fully illustrated essays and catalogue entries are a visual glossary, which offers glimpses of the real-life creatures and landscapes that helped inspire the artworks, and a glossary of terms defining some of the essential concepts of Aboriginal culture. Ancestral Modern is dedicated to a vanguard effort by artists who are showing the world another way to experience not only their own country and worldviews but nature itself, wherever it is encountered.

Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art

Arts & Photography

Caruana, Wally

Corrin, Lisa Graziose

Gilchrist, Stephen

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

A dynamic look at the potential of disguise seen in masks, installations, and performances by contemporary artists of African descent While masks are a major art form in many parts of Africa, their use has taken new turns in the 21st century. Disguise: Masks and Global African Art explores how themes related to masking and disguise in the past are now transitioning into new platforms around the world. The authors examine the influence of masks residing in the Seattle Art Museum’s renowned collection, investigating the longevity of masquerades, and how they offer ways to disrupt and reimagine reality. In today’s global and digital world, artists are engaging with disguise through photography, video, and interactive platforms. Ten contemporary artists interviewed for this catalogue create work that conceals, layers, and reinvents identities. They include Jacolby Satterwhite, who creates extravagantly choreographed videos; Brendan Fernandes, whose performance-based works show how dance embodies disguise; and Zino Sara-Wiwa, a video artist and filmmaker who has examined the status of traditional Ogoni masks in the midst of Nigeria’s destructive oil trade. They are joined by numerous others from around the globe who address the intersection of disguise, identity, ritual, and contemporary life.

Disguise: Masks and Global African Art

Massaquoi, Erika Dalya

Art from Africa: Long Steps Never Broke a Back

This strikingly unusual and beautifully illustrated book represents a turning point in African art history. The authors draw on personal memories, interviews, and oral narratives to present twelve "case histories" of objects--or clusters of objects--in the Seattle Art Museum's renowned collection of African art. Each case history is enriched by comments from artists, art historians, writers, community members, and patrons who guide readers back into the markets, palaces, ceremonies, shrines, and streets where African art originated. Often sitting still and silent in a museum display case, African art is frozen in an alien frame. Vibrant music, movement, debate, and cryptic voices are among the missing elements that once surrounded the mask, sculpture, ring, or stool. Reframing the objects, Art from Africa proposes looking at what was once done with them while also listening carefully to what was once said in their presence. As the case histories reveal, the gross mislabeling of objects as "fetishes," "idols," and "devil masks" dissolves as art becomes better known as medicine, philosophy, personality correctives, and blessings for the future. Known for his scintillating analyses of African art, Robert Farris Thompson devotes his opening essay to introducing the missing dimension of motion, exploring the meaning of postures and gestures in various African cultures. A curator dedicated to telling the stories behind such art, Pamela McClusky explores subjects ranging from royal art of the Kom and Asante kingdoms, masquerades from the Yoruba, Dan, and Mende cultures, hunters’ shirts from the Mande empire, sculpture from the Kongo kingdom, Mercedes-Benz coffins from the streets of Ghana, photographs from Mali, and Maasai body ornaments. This book accompanies a special exhibition of the museum's collection, but, as all art lovers who look beyond museum walls will appreciate, it is much more than an exhibition catalogue. EXHIBITION SCHEDULE http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/ Philadelphia Museum of ArtOctober 2, 2004 - January 2, 2005.

Thompson, Robert Farris

Princeton University Press

This strikingly unusual and beautifully illustrated book represents a turning point in African art history. The authors draw on personal memories, interviews, and oral narratives to present twelve "case histories" of objects--or clusters of objects--in the Seattle Art Museum's renowned collection of African art. Each case history is enriched by comments from artists, art historians, writers, community members, and patrons who guide readers back into the markets, palaces, ceremonies, shrines, and streets where African art originated.
 Often sitting still and silent in a museum display case, African art is frozen in an alien frame. Vibrant music, movement, debate, and cryptic voices are among the missing elements that once surrounded the mask, sculpture, ring, or stool. Reframing the objects, Art from Africa proposes looking at what was once done with them while also listening carefully to what was once said in their presence. As the case histories reveal, the gross mislabeling of objects as "fetishes," "idols," and "devil masks" dissolves as art becomes better known as medicine, philosophy, personality correctives, and blessings for the future.
 Known for his scintillating analyses of African art, Robert Farris Thompson devotes his opening essay to introducing the missing dimension of motion, exploring the meaning of postures and gestures in various African cultures. A curator dedicated to telling the stories behind such art, Pamela McClusky explores subjects ranging from royal art of the Kom and Asante kingdoms, masquerades from the Yoruba, Dan, and Mende cultures, hunters’ shirts from the Mande empire, sculpture from the Kongo kingdom, Mercedes-Benz coffins from the streets of Ghana, photographs from Mali, and Maasai body ornaments. This book accompanies a special exhibition of the museum's collection, but, as all art lovers who look beyond museum walls will appreciate, it is much more than an exhibition catalogue.
 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
 http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/ Philadelphia Museum of Art October 2, 2004 - January 2, 2005.

Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd

African art, from crocodiles to convertibles, in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum

Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art: Kaplan & Levi Collection

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