Hot Space, Cool Space The Reinstallation of the African Collection in the Louis Kahn Building at Yale University Frederick John Lamp Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/40/2/36/1734837/afar.2007.40.2.36.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 ould African art live and breathe freely in a sleek, spare, and quiet Modernist building cre- ated in the 1950s? This is the question the Afri- can curatorial staff confronted in turning a second-floor space—surrounded on two sides with all-glass walls, and on the other two sides by exposed brick—into a gallery devoted to the warmth and exu- Cberance of African forms. Could the art be seen not as modernist form, as it often is in Western art museums, but rather situated with contextual performative meaning and of an integrity in its own right? African art has, indeed, found a glorious new home in the newly renovated Louis Kahn Building of the Yale Univer- sity Art Gallery (YUAG), and while contradictions obviously remain, we were able to resolve some of the questions inherent in exhibiting African art in our own context. The collection of African art, including the Charles B. Benen- 1 Installation, Laura and James Ross Gallery of African Art, son gift of 2005, now numbers approximately 1,200 objects. For Yale University Art Gallery: the tools of Ifa divination, Yoruba. the reinstallation of the collection in the Kahn Building, we chose 135 objects, selected for their aesthetic excellence, historic interest, simple beauty or strength, formal variation, geographi- cal and chronological representation, variation in medium, and sometimes simply because we find them intriguing. The collec- tion occupies the exquisite open space against the western glass curtain wall, with approximately 3275 square feet, in the new James and Laura Ross Galleries of African Art. CULTURAL DEFINITION In drawing four walls around one body of art to the exclu- sion of others, definitions, obviously, have to be made. Africa is defined for our purposes as a broad art historical and cultural (opposite) expanse of connectedness and not strictly by land mass. Art is 2 Installation, Laura and James Ross Gallery of African Art, Yale University Art Gallery: Baga D’mba Mask enclosure. about people and their culture and cultural alignments. The defi- 36 | african arts SUMMER 2007 CMYK p36 09293 • 20702419 nition takes into consideration African self-definition. Cultural and leatherwork. Of these, the first two are primarily women’s orientation principally toward and within the continent, rather arts, while the third is produced by both men and women, and than toward the outside, is a factor of inclusion. This definition they are often at their aesthetic pinnacle in northern, southern, expands the parameters previously given in museum displays of and eastern Africa. We have just received a collection of hun- African art in its inclusion of Ethiopian peoples in our display, dreds of examples of metalwork, especially iron currencies, that which is the current pattern throughout art museums with Afri- will go on display on another round. The collections through- can collections. out Yale University will enable us ultimately to represent Nubian, Part of the Kahn aesthetic has to do with simple flexibility, Swahili, and Saharan peoples. There is already some inclusion of with movable panels and open spaces. The plan for the reopen- the global diaspora of African cultural form in various Art Gal- ing of Kahn has always included the possibility of continued lery departments, and we would want to allude to that with some rotation, to change the display to respond to shifting needs and representation within the African gallery as well as in the galler- expectations. The African collection of the YUAG will allow us ies devoted to American art. Although ancient Egypt justifiably to introduce many other forms and media. It is largely because resides in the Department of Ancient Art, we eventually want to of the emphasis given to masks and sculpture in wood, clay, and suggest its connection with the rest of Africa through some rep- metal that eastern, northeastern, and southern Africa have been resentation in the African gallery. Fortunately, the collections in ignored throughout Western collecting. Our collecting mission is ancient Nubian and Egyptian art are rich at Yale, principally at to attract items that are not traditionally seen in museum African the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/40/2/36/1734837/afar.2007.40.2.36.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 collections, such as beadwork, pottery, basketry, textile, jewelry, SUMMER 2007 african arts | 37 CMYK p37 09293 • 20702419 26 Installation, Laura and James Ross Gallery of African Art, Yale University (this page) Art Gallery: West African display with the Yoruba Shrine Figure facing the Baga 3 Mask with superstructure representing a beautiful mother (D’mba) D’mba Mask enclosure.v Baga (Sitem subgroup), Bulungits, or Pukur. Guinea, late 19th–early 20th century Wood, brass, 132.08cm x 39cm x 61.5cm (52" x 15⅓" x 24¼"); 37.4 kg (82.5 lb.) Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection. 2006.51.390 4 Processional cross Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahido Church. Ethiopia, 19th century Copper alloy, 44.5cm x 37.2cm x 3.5cm (17½" x 14⅔" x 1⅓") Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Valerian Lada-Mocarski. 1977.67.94 (opposite) 5 Staff with a human figure Suku or Yaka. Congo (Kinshasa), Angola, late 19th–early 20th century Wood, brass, copper, glass beads, shells, seed pods, cloth, animal claws, horn, feathers, fiber, coin, 96.5cm x 18cm (38" x 7") Charles B. Benenson, B.A. 1933, Collection. 2006.51.145 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/40/2/36/1734837/afar.2007.40.2.36.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 DIVERSITY OF CULTURES Kongo of Central Africa. A wide range of objects is displayed in We aim to show through the installation and the selection of each focus area in order to give the visitor a sense of a somewhat objects that Africa is not one country and one culture, but com- borderless, somewhat discrete cultural system in which objects prises many diverse peoples and cultures. Visitors will be made participate. In addition, one display features exclusively figura- aware that the continent is vast, containing cultures and artistic tive staffs from throughout Africa, to give the viewer an oppor- styles that differ widely, from highly centralized Islamic states in tunity to view these minutely detailed miniature carvings free of the west to small nomadic herding groups in the east, to an Afri- distraction from larger, more imposing pieces, and to examine canized Byzantine Christian Ethiopia. them as a special art form for a cluster of related uses. The installation, though representing as many cultures as our collection permits, contains several focus areas that explore spe- CONTEXTUALIZATION cific cultures chosen for their disparate character. We are able to The reopening of the Louis Kahn Building is meant to celebrate show in some depth the arts of the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Igbo the work of this renowned architect, particularly as this building of Nigeria, the Dan of Liberia, the Cameroon grasslands, the was his first commission, so there is a legacy here to commemo- Akan of Ghana, the Baga of Guinea, the Dogon of Mali, and the rate. In keeping with the Kahn aesthetic of simple, clean, spare 38 | african arts SUMMER 2007 CMYK p38 09293 • 20702419 lines and open space, we have kept the We are now engaged in a major collab- number of objects to a minimum, and we orative research project, funded by the have maintained the stripped-down clarity National Endowment for the Humanities of the objects themselves as they currently and private donors, involving an interna- appear in our collection—as sculpture. tional team of scholars from five different This may seem antithetical to the spirit of disciplines in the arts to study the Baga African art, but it is, in fact, the custom- D’mba mask in performance. The research ary way of showing African art in West- will address the movement, the music, the ern museums. The time to ratchet up the narratives, and the historical aesthetic, sense of performance and the complexity with the goal of a monograph and an of the ensemble will come as we rotate and exhibition focusing just on this one per- adjust the installation periodically. formance genre. This exhibition would be Movement is more subtly suggested, a prototype for future examinations of the nevertheless, by the placement of the performance context of other objects in object. Boxes and pedestals, which create the collection. a sense of immobility and groundedness, are avoided in the case of objects meant to FOCUS ON HIGHLIGHTS Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/afar/article-pdf/40/2/36/1734837/afar.2007.40.2.36.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 move; the use of slender armatures sug- The YUAG has a number of objects gests weightlessness, and objects are sus- that are widely regarded as world class. In pended from the ceiling in some cases. order to draw in the visitor, to guide the The great Baga D’mba mask with its four visitor to our most exquisite objects, and legs (Fig. 2) is placed not on a pedestal, as to create visually exciting spaces, object is customary, but rather balanced on a sin- grouping and space assignment is varied. gle vertical rod that supports the under- Vistas are created in front of some spec- side of the huge chest, as the dancer’s head tacular, large objects, such as the Baga would in performance (Fig.