exhibition review

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Vision: In Pursuit of the Best in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas The metropolitan museum of Art, october 8, 2013–october 5, 2014

reviewed by Jonathan Fine

The public rarely sees how objects come to be defined as art and categorized as master- pieces (or otherwise). Yet these are crucial pieces of the puzzle for understanding why many museums display and promote historical African art. Excellent recent work by scholars and curators, such as Kathleen Bickford Ber- 1 Installation view, “The Nelson A. zock’s and Christa Clarke’s Representing Africa Robert Goldwater (1907–1973). It also docu- Rockefeller Vision: In Pursuit of the in American Art Museums (Seattle: Univer- mented the activities of the MPA in displaying Best in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and sity of Washington Press, 2011), has brought and promoting non-Western art in New York the Americas,” Michael C. Rockefeller to light the critical history of American insti- and around the world in the mid-twentieth Special Exhibition Gallery. tutions. But so far the broad public has often century. all photos: The Metropolitan Museum been left in the dark. In “The Nelson A. Rock- Although Rockefeller’s financial and per- of Art, Photography Studio efeller Vision,” Alissa LaGamma and the cura- sonal contributions to the formation of the torial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of MPA and its collections were immense, Art’s Department of Africa, Oceania, and the d’Harnoncourt’s and Goldwater’s activity also Americas turned on the light to illuminate the bore closely on the formation of the collec- tastes and preferences that shaped the core of tion. Their views will be familiar to scholars the Met’s collections for nonspecialists as well from Kate Ezra’s contribution to Representing as scholars. African Art in American Art Museums, which ized d’Harnoncourt’s ideas about style, form, “The Rockefeller Vision” unfolded chrono- analyzed how the men worked and the dif- and typology. They also defined the kinds of logically and thematically in the intimate ferences between their approaches. The exhi- non-Western objects that were desirable as Michael C. Rockefeller Special Exhibition bition, however, built on Ezra’s scholarship art. For the African desiderata, for instance, Gallery. The exhibition began by juxtaposing impressively, examining how d’Harnoncourt d’Harnoncourt gravitated toward objects from two defining moments, which were narrated and Goldwater also guided the MPA’s Pre- Francophone West Africa and Congo. He on the walls on both sides of the entrance. Columbian, Native American, and Oceanic showed far less interest in works from Anglo- To the left was a discussion of the clash that acquisitions. phone Nigeria. As a result, he steered Rock- occurred around 1930 between Nelson Rocke- The first section of the exhibition focused efeller away from some kinds of objects and feller (1908–1979) and Herbert Winlock (1884– on d’Harnoncourt, who made his suggestions placed a premium on others, which can be 1950), the Met’s director, about the museum’s for acquisitions to Rockefeller using note- seen in the way the collection evolved. The refusal to accept pre-Columbian objects into books, organized geographically by region curators’ use of pages from d’Harnoncourt’s its collections. This conflict spurred Rock- (North, South, Central America, Oceania, notebooks, often juxtaposed with the objects efeller eventually to found his own museum, and Africa) and within each region by “tribe” that Rockefeller acquired based on his recom- the (MPA). To the or “ethnic group.” D’Harnoncourt used these mendations, enabled viewers to grasp imme- right, the text noted Rockefeller’s later recon- notebooks to propose “desiderata” or ideal diately the distance and differences between ciliation with the Met and the transfer of the objects he thought Rockefeller should seek to d’Harnoncourt’s ideals and the real objects MPA’s collections to the Met in the 1970s. The acquire. D’Harnoncourt illustrated his desid- Rockefeller purchased. exhibition examined the development of the erata with idealized sketches and photographs The second and third sections of the exhi- MPA’s collection between these two points in of the kinds of object he had in mind. He bition focused on Robert Goldwater, who time, and it was structured primarily around based his desiderata on objects from other col- served as director of the MPA from 1956 until the three protagonists of that story: Rock- lections and works available on the market. his death almost two decades later. Goldwater efeller, René d’Harnoncourt (1901–1968), and The notebooks, in effect, codified and canon- approached non-Western art primarily as a

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150226-002_78-96_CS6.indd 78 3/3/15 3:34 PM 2 Installation view, “The Nelson A. Rockefeller Vision: In Pursuit of the Best in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas,” Michael C. Rockefeller Special Exhibition Gallery.

“primitive” influence on European and Ameri- can modern art. His methodology focused on assessing the aesthetic character of the works and his own understanding of their context. But his scholarship and connoisseurship were based almost entirely on secondary scholar- ship and his knowledge of objects already in Western collections. It was under Goldwater’s influence that Rockefeller shifted his collecting emphasis, seeking primarily to acquire excep- tional “masterpieces.” The exhibition effectively illuminated the differences in collecting outcomes between d’Harnoncourt and Goldwater by strategi- cally contrasting acquisitions suggested by each man. A particularly informative example was the side-by-side display of a Baule mask purchased on the advice of d’Harnoncourt and the now-famous Baule two-faced mask acquired under Goldwater. The mask champi- oned by d’Harnoncourt possesses the aesthetic qualities Western collectors prized in terms of shape, form, and elegance: a solid essay in a particular genre of object. The Goldwa- ter mask, however, stands out as exceptional

(left–right) 3 Sculptural element from a reliquary ensemble: Head (the “Great Bieri”) Unidentified Fang artist, Gabon, 19th century Wood, metal, palm oil; 46.5 cm x 24.8 cm x 16.8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

4 René d’Harnoncourt, Catalog and Desiderata, p. 26-D. The Museum of Primitive Art Records, Visual Resource Archive, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

5 Commemorative Mother and Child Figure Unidentified Yombe artist, Angola or Democratic Republic of Congo, 19th or 20th century Wood, glass, metal, pigment; 34.6 cm x 12.1 cm x 9.8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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150226-002_78-96_CS6.indd 79 3/3/15 3:34 PM against these criteria, exaggerating what col- US, Japan, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, the Middle lectors sought from Baule carvings and show- exhibition review East, and Asia, among many other places, pho- ing off the sculptor’s bravura integration of tographing events. two faces on the front of a single mask. Indeed, a close study of “A Nomad’s Har- The exhibition’s final sections highlighted vest” gives the impression that the entire world the MPA’s public outreach and research pro- is one fragile edifice, at least, as seen through grams. In the 1950s and 1960s, the museum Hallet’s lens. It may also suggest an unstable mounted approximately seventy exhibitions, space where life is an eclectic ensemble of pos- put out almost fifty publications, and made sibilities and impossibilities. One can conclude impressive loans to exhibitions in Africa. It that in Hallet’s photography high hopes give also benefited tremendously from the anthro- A Nomad’s Harvest way to raw doubts; brimming life engages sor- pological field research of , Iziko south African national rowing death; plenitude juxtaposes deficiency ’s son, whose life was cut Gallery (IsAnG), Cape Town and struggle contrasts retreat. short in 1961. The role of publicity-oriented march 5–July 9, 2014 The curatorial work by Pam Warne and Joe activities in the MPA’s history is crucial for Dolby greatly enhanced the deeper apprecia- understanding how d’Harnoncourt and Gold- reviewed by Okechukwu Nwafor tion of Hallet as a fascinating visual raconteur, water established and propagated their ideas divinely envisioning the universe’s landscape. about “quality” outside the MPA’s inner circle. “A Nomad’s Harvest” was an ambitious visual Yet “A Nomad’s Harvest” made loud pro- The MPA’s books, richly illustrated with pic- account of life across the world, as seen by nouncement of a professional investigation into ture of many objects, were instrumental in George Hallet since the 1960s through sixty questions of temporality, spatial (dis)location, establishing Western collections and institu- of his photographs. Born in District Six, Cape Diaspora predicament, struggle for nationhood, tions as arbiters of taste in non-Western art, Town, South Africa in 1942, Hallet was one of political impasse, internal and external dis- often above and beyond those in the regions a few photographers to document the demoli- agreement, familial solicitude, (ir)reconcilable and countries where the art was made. The tion of District Six by the apartheid regime after power struggles, personal sorrows, collective museum’s programming also privileged a it was declared a White area in 1966. This land- apathy, national pathos, among so many others. vision of non-Western art that lionized histori- mark project probably heralded Hallet’s sojourn It seems as though all of these were captured cal rather than modern works, even as some of into the world of photography with a major by Hallet in a single moment, as there are simi- the most important modern artists were trans- exhibition in Cape Town in 1969. Apparently lar images of poverty or religious events across forming the canons of art across Africa. More- a victim of the punitive apartheid system, Hal- many continents and nations. More parallel over, there is a tension between Goldwater’s let went into exile in London in 1970. It is this ties have been further amplified by juxtaposi- armchair taste-making and Michael Rockefell- move that may have culminated in the visual tions such as Cameroon landscape with mother er’s direct, personal research in the areas from odyssey aptly crafted as “A Nomad’s Harvest.” and child, 1992 and Street scene in Casablanca, which he collected objects. The implications of While in exile in London, Hallet made con- 1992; The unemployed women, Tydwell, Wales, the intellectual and interpretive divergences of tact with many South Africans, especially 1972, and The unemployed men, Birmingham, the two approaches are deep and far-reaching, exiled artists. He was employed by the Times going to the heart of the differences between Educational Supplement and assignments museums that display historical objects from took him all over Britain, where he recorded Africa, Oceania, and the Americas as art and aspects of the lives of Welsh miners, gypsies, 1 George Hallet those that promote more anthropologically hippies, and the Asian and Caribbean commu- Gavin Jantjes in his studio in Witshire, 1983 oriented perspectives. nities. He eventually travelled to France, the all photos: courtesy ISANG “The Rockefeller Vision” was a success, meaty and serious, guiding viewers through a tremendous amount of material with ease and assurance. It cast a crucial light on the charac- ter and development of the Met’s own presen- tation of its objects and the wider dynamics that shaped the field of African art studies in the twentieth century. Museum visitors and scholars can hope that the Metropolitan will continue to explore the history of its own col- lections in future exhibitions.

Jonathan Fine is Curator for West Africa at the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. His research centers on sculpture and drawing in Western Cameroon from the nine- teenth century to the present. [email protected] berlin.de

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