The Language of Beauty in African Art — Art Institute of Chicago

Guro, Ivory Coast, 19th to early 20th Century

This is one amazing show of African art - though it doesn’t really  "decolonize the Western aesthetic standards long placed on these objects” as gallery signage asserts. Indeed, the standard museum style installation reaffirms our world, not theirs. The dramatic lighting and attention to surrounding space encourages the viewer to see formal qualities, as does the arrangement of pieces that look good together, regardless of origin. The exhibit that came to Chicago in 1963, “Senofo Sculpture from West Africa" had a better opportunity to establish local context by focusing on just one people in one place. This exhibition includes many peoples from western and central Africa, from Mali down to South Africa, and often they share the same display case.

And then one might ask: just how were these pieces selected? Obviously 19th century Africans could not be given the job — but what about African artists and collectors from our time? Wouldn’t their sensibilities of life and Art likely be closer to that of their great grandparents? There are a few who are even carrying on their traditions.

 Instead the job was given to Constantine Petridis, the Art Institute’s curator of African Art. Being a Belgian, he is much closer to those who destroyed much of central Africa’s indigenous society. But he’s also much closer to many of the European museums and private collectors from which most of these pieces came. And if I may say so, his taste agrees with mine - which is why I find this show so enjoyable. Just as with European and Asian art, only a small percentage of African art is worth looking at - and Petridis brought us the very best. (for many examples of mediocrity, visit the Art Institute's permanent gallery of African art). So many genres are represented so well: Dan masks, Iginga figures, Luba staffs, Bamala puppets, Igbo helmets, Songye Nkishi, Fang reliquary guardians, Zulu headrests. 

 Yet what’s missing are more recent examples. It’s as if all African art traditions died out in the early 20th Century. And while it is an axiom of Euro art theory that you cannot enter the same river twice, traditional societies demand that you keep on jumping in.

 Petridis did such a great job, I really don’t wish any one else had been involved. But rather than all the virtue signaling about decolonization, I wish he had done something actually virtuous as well as ground breaking:  show us more recent African art  that’s related to the traditions seen in this show - like the Nigerian sculptor Moshood Olusomo Bamigboye   (which is not to say that I recommend him)

African art pursues a life affirming power  (as in the above image). that so much of mainstream contemporary art studiously avoids.

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A selection  of my favorite pieces is shown here

Dmitry Samavov in the Chicago Reader wrote pretty much the same thing. The "de-colonization" proclaimed in the signage is utter nonsense - but the spirit of life runs very strong in these carvings.