Sachgebiete

Beschreibung:

32 S.; Abbildungen; geheftet.

Bemerkung:

Gutes Ex.; Einband leicht berieben. - Abbildungen: Holzstühle; Kopfstützen; Tabakdosen; Pfeifen; Kämme; Körbe; Löffel; Schalen. // "PERSONAL OBJECTS GIVE coherence to the life of an individual or to members of a group. They heighten a sense of identity. They fulfill notions of practicality and satisfy the human desire to embellish one's environment. They exemplify a widespread human impulse to make and use visually pleasing yet practical objects, objects that bring a sense of order to the diversity and complexity of everyday life. It is in these contexts that the Na-tional Museum of African Art devoted one of its inaugural loan exhibitions in 1987 to objects of use and then from 1989 to 1991 began to acquire utilitarian objects for its permanent collection. The museum's interest in this category of African visual traditions was part of a "useful" continuum that began in 1972 with an exhibition conceived by Roy Sieber, African Textiles and Decorative Objects, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1980 Sieber followed the MoMA project with another, African Furniture and Household Objects, organized under the auspices of the American Federation of Arts. In both exhibitions, Sieber effectively persuaded us to study traditional forms that had been "neglected by the West, where attention has been focused primarily on the sculpture of Africa." His conviction in 1972, now fully embraced by museums, was that personal and later household objects "may, indeed, reveal the breadth and range of the aesthetic life of traditional Africa with greater accuracy than the limited formulations that currently serve in the West as a basis for most studies in African art." For Sieber, our Western view of traditional utilitarian objects "has been warped by our passion for the figurative, the decorative and the unique." Sieber's 1972 and 1980 exhibitions were pan-African. In contrast, this part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of African Art is focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the east and the south-regions generally ignored or only cursorily acknowledged in museums and in the study of Africa's visual arts. Of the objects selected for exhibition by chief curator Philip Ravenhill, about two-thirds come from eastern or southern Africa. Most of the objects date from the early twentieth century; a few have firm nineteenth-century provenances. Descriptions of such objects in early travelers' reports from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, however, suggest that many categories of utilitarian objects are de-monstrably old. These ubiquitous forms, including stools, headrests, bowls, pipes, and combs, reflect a variety of lifestyles and aesthetic orientations, which are discussed in Ravenhill's text. Collection formation is a continuing process, but its beginning, as in this case, is often through the beneficent donation of single pieces from private collectors in the United States. However, the core of this collection, consisting of ninety-two objects, was acquired in 1989. That major collection-development step was made possible by a generous grant from the James Smithson Society of the Smithsonian National Associates. The collection, and hence this exhibition, could not have been realized without the Smithson Society's unwavering commitment to collection development within the Smithsonian Institution and their full support of the National Museum of African Art's effort. For this we are deeply grateful. We hope that this glimpse into the art of the personal object enriches our understanding and appreciation of practical things that triumphantly embellish the environment in which Africans live." SYLVIA H. WILLIAMS (Vorwort) ISBN 0295971711