Foreword

Rondeau, James

Save Cite Share

Free

Foreword

James Rondeau

The Language of Beauty in African Art

Foreword

Author

James Rondeau

PublisherArt Institute of Chicago

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22972

Foreword

The Language of Beauty in African Art is the first exhibition of traditional arts of Africa at the Art Institute of Chicago in more than a decade. Yet in many ways it is a continuation of activities surrounding the 2019 reinstallation of galleries and the 2020 publication of a catalogue, Speaking of Objects, dedicated to our permanent collections in this area. The present project, conceived and developed by Constantine Petridis, Chair and Curator of Arts of Africa, not only dramatically expands the purview of those endeavors to encompass works created in dozens of distinct cultures but also gives full and focused attention to associated indigenous perspectives—that is, to local evaluations of these objects as beautiful, ugly, or something beyond those familiar categories. We understand the traditional arts of Africa to be intricately intertwined with the collective values of the communities from which they emerge, and in which they routinely serve functions and carry meanings that lend a significant spiritual or social dimension to physical appearance and evaluations thereof. Indeed, this role in the past and present life of its users distinguishes this type of art from modern and contemporary creations by African artists. The presentation is rooted in field-based research into the judgments, vocabularies, and conventions shared by the makers, users, and original audiences of these works, or of similar ones in the same traditions. Even though scholars have undertaken such research for almost a full century—efforts that are increasingly conducted by members of the originating groups and informed by their intimate knowledge of cultural values—their findings have not reliably complemented the objects’ appearances in the West, either in museums or in print. The Language of Beauty in African Art aims to bring those perspectives into view alongside the artworks themselves, foregrounding the voices and contexts that shaped and greeted each one’s final form.

To date, most of the research on the aesthetics of traditional African art has been conducted in the vast region south of the Sahara desert, an area that, over prior millennia, witnessed the diffusion of Niger-Congo languages; this part of the continent is also where most of the works preserved in museums and private collections in North America and Europe originated, usually during the latter part of the nineteenth century or the early twentieth. Our project’s focus reflects those conditions as we seize the opportunity to both showcase the specificities of individual works and highlight the commonalities that have been traced across cultures in these regions—patterns woven into or even transformed by local particularities. Such an exhibition would of course not be possible without the generous loans of objects from other collections around the world. My colleagues and I are deeply grateful to our numerous lenders, including institutional and private collectors, for providing access to the singular pieces in their care. I am also indebted to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, for their collaboration, and I thank its director, Eric Lee, for welcoming the exhibition to its inaugural venue.

From the beginning, the project has benefited from the insights of scholars who conducted foundational fieldwork in Africa as well as those who continue it today. I extend our appreciation to Herbert M. Cole, Kassim Kone, Babatunde Lawal, and Susan Mullin Vogel for contributing detailed case studies, which are complemented by Yaëlle Biro’s historiographic account of Western viewers’ responses to African art and an expansive cross-cultural overview essay from art historian and cultural anthropologist Wilfried van Damme. I am grateful to each author for their invaluable participation, and Van Damme in particular for his role as an advisor. This ambitious effort has also been meaningfully informed by the perspectives of Chicago-based community members, advisors, leaders, and artists, who generously shared their expertise and enthusiasm at every stage.

Major funding for The Language of Beauty in African Art is provided by Lilly Endowment Inc., Myrna Kaplan, Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson, Javier Peres and Benoît Wolfrom, and an anonymous donor. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. Members of the Luminary Trust provide annual leadership support for the museum’s operations, including exhibition development, conservation and collection care, and educational programming. The Luminary Trust includes an anonymous donor, Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation, Karen Gray-Krehbiel and John Krehbiel, Jr., Kenneth C. Griffin, the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, Josef and Margot Lakonishok, Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy, Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff, Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel, Anne and Chris Reyes, Cari and Michael J. Sacks, and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation.

What is praised—or disparaged—in the traditional visual arts of Africa is usually also what is admired in real life, and our investigation of that correspondence prompts wider reflections on art’s potential to represent collective beliefs. Many features of works in The Language of Beauty in African Art transcend spatial and temporal boundaries and point to common aesthetic priorities that in turn suggest underlying continuities of meaning. This project also helps deepen our understanding of how objects circulate in the world and how collections come together, highlighting the ways in which archival research continually offers the opportunity to expand and revise our knowledge as well as rediscover and probe its limits. In that spirit, the exhibition and its accompanying publication and programming aim to foster discussions about cultural representation and responsible museum stewardship that are taking place throughout the world today. It responds to demands by scholars and activists alike to hold space for the members of a cultural community to participate in the care and display of their own art and history. We feature the languages and voices that first shaped these works as part of ongoing efforts within our museum to situate arts within their historical and social contexts at the same time that we strive to recognize and appreciate our fundamental differences and commonalities.

James Rondeau

President and Eloise W. Martin Director

The Art Institute of Chicago

Previous chapter Next chapter

Base text size -

Chapter images ()