contemporary russian art photography || face of the gods

Face of the GodsFace of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas by Robert FarrisThompsonReview by: Judith BettelheimArt Journal, Vol. 53, No. 2, Contemporary Russian Art Photography (Summer, 1994), pp. 99-103Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777494 .

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Face of the Gods JUDITH BETTELHEIM

Robert Farris Thompson. Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and the African Americas. Munich: Prestel for the Museum for African Art, New York. 336 pp.; 282 color ills., 27 b/w. $70.00, $39.50 paper

Exhibition schedule: Museum for African Art, New York, September 24, 1993- January 7, 1994; Seattle Art Museum, Feb-

ruary 17-April 17, 1994; University Art Museum, Berkeley, California, September 27, 1994-February 19, 1995; Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, March 19-May 14, 1995; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, July 1-September 1, 1995

This is the first exhibition in any language to study the rise, development, spiritual and artistic achievement of the altars of tradi- tional religions of black people. We'll focus on major civilizations like the Yoruba and Kongo, their different altar traditions and re- sulting creolizations in the Americas with Ro- man Catholicism, Masonic practices, and Amerindian beliefs. People will see that the Black Atlantic world is doing some wonderful ecumenical things, and that servitors find spiritual sustenance and moral self-discovery at the Afro-American altar.-Robert Farris Thompson, undated interview by the Mu- seum for African Art

he Museum for African Art, for- merly the Center for African Art, continues its pathbreaking exhibi-

tion programming with this exhibition, which documents Yale professor of art history Robert Farris Thompson's thirty-year scholarly study of the continuity and trans- formation of African Diaspora culture. The museum is known for its often controversial statements concerning the display and concomitant understanding of African art. The history of this adventuresome programming can be attributed to the career of director Susan Vogel, who in the preface to the accompanying book traces the beginning of her commitment to the field to her early work as a registrar at the Museum for Primitive Art during the course of the exhibition "Af-

rican and Afro-American Art: The Trans- atlantic Tradition," curated by Thompson, which opened at the museum in 1968. It was then it would seem that two distinct yet equally exciting careers were begun. Vogel followed in the employ of the Museum for Primitive Art, and when it was incorporated into the Metropolitan Museum of Art she became curator in charge of the African collection. After leaving the Metropolitan, Vogel, in 1984, established the Center for African Art. Since fall 1992 the museum has been located in SoHo. Under her guid- ance, major ground-breaking exhibitions have challenged and altered our understanding of African art, while commenting on the nature of that understanding itself. Perhaps the best known of these was the 1988 circulating exhibition "ART/artifact." In the foreword to the catalogue for that exhibition, Vogel wrote:

Another Center exhibition and publication, "Perspectives: Angles on African Art," ex- amined the different kinds of access we as outsiders can have to an art whose cultural context is little known. 'ART/artifact" deals with definitions of these two terms, and with a related issue: the way perception of a work of art is conditioned by its presentation.

More recently, in 1991 (while still located in an uptown brownstone), the museum presented the widely appreciated and written about exhibition "Africa Explores: Twentieth-Century African Art," with the collaboration of the New Museum, now its neighbor in SoHo.

On the other hand, Robert Farris Thompson, as a professor of art history at Yale University and as an independent curator, continued to establish, almost single- handedly, a new way of perceiving African art and virtually a new field within art history: African art and the transatlantic tradition. He is by far the most important pioneer in the field. As Thompson himself explains: "The idea for my research on altars came to me when I realized, in a monograph I wrote in 1967, that the twin foci of African art were the dance and the altar" (undated interview, Museum for African Art). His major 1975 exhibition "African Art in Motion" marked the establishment of a new canon for

the understanding of African art and more generically African aesthetics. Thompson wrote in the substantial and pioneering catalogue to that exhibition: "Africa thus intro- duces a different art history, a history of danced art, defined in the movement of sculpture, textiles and other forms, bring- ing into being their own inherent goodness and vitality." That catalogue remains one of the most important documents in the field of African aesthetics and its vibrations in the Americas. With this 1975 exhibition, Thompson spoke to one-half of the "twin foci of African art." Thompson continued his curatorial accomplishments with, in 1981, "The Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds," co-curated with Joseph Cornet. But the second half of the fulfill- ment of his initial gloss on African art comes to fruition in the present exhibition, "Face of the Gods." Although an early canonical treatment was codified in Thompson's 1983 book Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philos- ophy, the essential role of belief and the unity of religion, aesthetics, and voice in the survival of a people is most powerfully documented in the present exhibition. "Face of the Gods" sets a precedent in its documentation of often misunderstood and often wrongly and sensationally presented African and African Diaspora religions, and also explores the possibilities of pre- senting the art of the altar in a secular context, decontextualizing the altar and simultaneously attempting to preserve and present its innate spirituality.

In the exhibition, altar traditions of West Africa (mainly Yoruba) and Central Africa (mainly Kongo) are linked to religious expressions in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Black and Latino North America. Eighteen altars are presented. Six major sections of historical-artistic ge- ography delineate the overlapping and sometimes confusing sections of the exhibition: Yoruba Gods and Their Emblems; Tied Space and Spiritual Circling: Kongo- Atlantic Altars; Flag Altars to the Ances- tors: Saamaka and Ndjuki; The Circling of the Soul and Kongo Medicines of God; Fu- sion Faiths; and Ultimate Altar: The Atlan- tic Ocean. These sections and their aes-

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FIG. 1 Afro-Brazilian Altar to the Yoruba Creator God. Based on an altar made by Mai Jocelinha in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1982. Executed by Eneida Assunqio Sanches, Clodimir Menezes da Silva, and Eneida Assunqio Sanches.

thetic underpinnings overlap by the very nature of the history of the African Amer- icas. For example, non-Yoruba people joined Yoruba (Nigeria)-based religious so- cieties in the Americas, and practitioners of a Yoruba-based religious practice found

power in a Kongo-based practice, while si-

multaneously living under a Catholic- dominated colonial government. In this way they established new creative mixtures of

religions, iconography, and attitudes essential to survival.

How does one maintain belief in the face of centuries of suppression? How does one practice a religion in the face of legal strictures against it? It must be realized that the practice of noninstitutionalized re-

ligion in the Americas is/was in and of itself a revolutionary activity. It is often difficult for those of us educated in a European "avant-garde" tradition to view religious belief and expression as revolutionary, but in

fact that is what developed in the Americas when descendants of Africans creatively developed and practiced new religions under slavery and colonial repression. Some would even insist that, in some locations

today, the contemporary practice of noninstitutionalized religions continues to be a rebellious, if not revolutionary, activity. And in some locations the practice of any religion is/was regarded as subversive. It is within this context that the altars included in this exhibition must be appreciated.

Sequins, lace, a faux leopard skin, doilies sprayed with gold paint, a quilted baby blanket, the tops of feather dusters

(some in wonderful pastels), strips of wooden beads from the seat covers that New York City taxi drivers use, cement poured into sculptural forms, plastic flowers, and much more. Such is the material of altars created from a profusion of prefabricated and mass-produced objects that have been

assigned new roles in this aesthetic environment: objects that have been disassembled and reassembled to create installations crafted by the hands of practitioners, be- lievers, survivors. These altars of the Afri- can Americas, created specifically, or re- created as the case may be, for this exhibition are juxtaposed with objects from collections of African art, objects delicately carved from wood and assigned a privileged place on solo pedestals or in ensembles in

Plexiglas cases. This pioneering exhibition combines an exciting and sometimes con-

fusing assortment of religious and aesthetic traditions, which are bonded by their basic, essentialist sourcing in Africa. The altars are explained in broad strokes, with the labels emphasizing basic religious and ico-

nographic information. Any detailed anal-

ysis or diagramming is left to the accom-

panying book, an enormously vital and canonical document in itself. (There are some unfortunate mistakes in the book. For instance, the artist Juan Boza's name is

misspelled. The museum has informed me that corrections will be made in a second edition.)

One of the more magnetic aspects of the curatorial vision is the sometimes subtle

juxtapositioning of aesthetic codes that runs

throughout the exhibition. For example, an

exquisite, delicate Yoruba crown, covered with white beads, for the deity ObatalA, is

placed on its own pedestal. This solo presentation emphasizes Obatala's singular position in the realm of creativity. The crown is placed within sight of an equally exquisite, but large, complex, and mar-

velously blended Afro-Brazilian altar to the same deity (fig. 1). Composed of and sur- rounded by silver and whiteness created by differently textured white cloth, staffs of tin and silver, plastic flowers, and tiles, the altar resonates with airiness and purity. One cannot help but ponder the obvious

juxtapositions: what is the curator telling us? Is there an embedded art historical

"message" that we the viewers are chal-

lenged to decipher? This type of juxtaposition simultaneously intrigues and chal- lenges. Consider another ensemble display in the section on the relationship between Kongo and Haitian religious imagery. Small, elegantly carved wooden Kongo nkisi (perhaps collected in the late nineteenth century), with reflective medicinal ingredients embedded in the stomach, stand

SUMMER 1994



alone. Adjacent are their contemporary Haitian equivalents (perhaps collected, or fabricated specifically for the exhibition). These pacquets congo (cloth bundles adorned with sequins and filled with medicinal and power ingredients, ultimately re- sembling an elaborate miniature cushion) and sequined or wrapped bottles are used by Haitian Vodun priests. Standing in front of this intriguing juxtaposition of objects, I wondered if my training in the arts of the African Diaspora permits me to understand more and therefore ask more. I wonder if a newcomer, enticed by the absolute power of the aesthetic confrontation of the exhibition as a whole, would "get" this particular display, or if she too would want some additional curatorial commentary. Why the over- whelming use of the mass produced? Why the attraction to glitter? And why do contemporary altar artists in the African Amer- icas avoid the carving of wood? The enor- mity of the transatlantic crossing (space) and the chronological differences among and between the various assemblages (time) have created as many differences as conti- nuities in this devotional art.

An introductory panel in the exhibition is worth quoting in full as it forthrightly establishes the museum's collaboration with the curator in this important experi- mental exhibition, and also proclaims early in the installation a particular postmoder- nist institutional self-reflexivity.

In terms of museum practice, this exhibition adopts a range of approaches that are usu- ally separate. Some objects here had religious applications long ago, but have acquired a second history in museum exhibits or collections. Others were created and sanctified by religious leaders here in the museum, and these exhibits have religious applications now. Still others are partial or total recon- structions, as in the dioramas found in tradi- tional natural history museums. As a sec- ondary issue, the exhibition thus explores the contested borders between authenticity and inauthenticity, art and belief.

While this bold endeavor certainly suc- ceeds in most of the installations, there is one major omission. When altars are "live," when they are built and used, the aesthetic process is first and foremost a performance. From my experience, the building, the wor- ship, the ceremonies and celebrations are accompanied by music, singing, chanting,

cooking, eating, smells, wind, rain, dust, sunshine, etc. There was no such ambiance in the entire exhibition. I found it much too still, too hushed, and at times flat. I wanted sound-some drums, some song/prayers- part of the aesthetics of the religious experience itself. (Since the time that I saw the exhibition, in October 1993, an audioguide has been made available, in which Thompson narrates a forty-minute walk through the exhibition, complete with music.)

One section of the exhibition is, to my mind, a failure: a yard show re-created from Cornelius Lee's original in Tidewater, Virginia. I was surprised by this installation, because I know how much research energy Thompson has devoted to the documentation and understanding of the yard show and concomitant traditions of bottle trees, decorated graves, and other adorned found objects located throughout the south- ern United States. An entire section of the catalogue, "From Ancient Loango to Twentieth-Century North America: Roots of the Yard Show," is dedicated to document- ing and explicating this complicated tradition. Regarded by many travelers through the countryside as junk or debris in people's yards, Thompson has been able to appreci- ate and explicate this peoples' art, linking it, in a series of publications over the years, to Kongo aesthetic and religious patterns, or as he calls it, "Kongo sacred culture." I am not arguing with Thompson's conclusions or even with the inclusion of the yard show and bottle tree in the exhibition. Rather it is the dioramic installation of a replica of the out- of-doors-complete with fence, facade, yard, and tree, in a dimly lit, dramatically rendered interior space-that I find problematic. Why bring the outdoors indoors? Why not present this section as a video with sound? Somehow it felt completely flat. I was equally surprised to discover that the tree in this section was designated as a Kongo Tree Altar to the Ancestors, pre- pared and consecrated by Dr. K. Kia Bun- seki Fu-Kiau, an important Kongo scholar residing in the United States and a close colleague of Thompson. I admire Fu-Kiau's scholarship and wish that it had been more creatively exhibited.

Another diorama in the exhibition is fascinating, but also just misses. From what I know from my own researches in the field, combined with the information pro-

vided by the exhibition label, the elements in an introductory Shang6 altar were bor- rowed from many collections and assembled in the museum. So far as I can determine, nothing in the altar was originally created as an ensemble. The installation is "based on altars from the Oyo-region of Nigeria during the first half of the twentieth century," according to the label text. But the dioramalike installation is neither di- agrammed nor completely deconstructed. It is presented as a reconstructed document, but one without a particular history. In the accompanying book, Thompson has illustrated an altar to Shang6 from Ibaden, Nigeria, as photographed by Leo Frobenius in 1912. The structural similarities to the altar in the exhibition are easily visible, and perhaps the inclusion of this type of historical specificity would have added an important dimension to the exhibition. But as there was no contextual photography in the exhibition, I assume that the curator had decided against contextualizing. I wonder why. Certainly many of the installations stand alone, but others may have become more powerful with additional documentation.

Back to the exhibition itself. In each section Thompson has didactically placed works that speak to simultaneous continuity and creolization. These are not necessarily contradictory, as some recent scholarship suggests. Often the individual museum piece is balanced by an assemblage created for the exhibition. Credit must be given to Thompson for underscoring the importance of naming the individual creative artist(s), as well as the practitioner(s), who collabo- rated on each altar. No "anonymous" desig- nations here. For example, consider the label for one of the most elaborate altars in the exhibition:

Oju Oxala: Afro-Brazilian Altar to the Yoruba Creator God. Based on an altar made by Mai Jocelinha in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, summer 1982. Mounted by Eneida

Assun{go Sanches. The altar metalwork is by Clodimir Menezes da Silva (Obatala staffs, metal plates) and Eneida Assunado Sanches (crown, bells, spoon), both of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

This complete labeling constitutes a major step toward revising museum practice in its recognition of the complexity of world artistic traditions. It also counters the more

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FIG. 2 Altar for the Spirit Sarabanda Rompe Monte. Executed by Felipe Garcia Villamil, Alfonso Serrano, Santiago Barriarios, and Ogundipe Fayomi.

usual style of documentation in African art exhibitions: "Nigeria, mid twentieth

century." Another altar is dedicated to the

spirit Sarabanda Rompe Monte (fig. 2), de-

signed and executed by Felipe Garcia Vil- lamil of Matanzas, Cuba, and the Bronx, New York. Villamil is a priest, master musi- cian, and ritual artist. The wall drawings were executed by Alfonso Serrano, the flag by Santiago Barriarios, and the metal sym- bol of Sarabanda was made by Ogundipe Fayomi. This altar is based on Villamil's own closet one, and a false closetlike struc- ture was created for the installation. A profusion of live greens surrounds the central

assemblage, created from objects of the liv-

ing (bones, shells, etc.) and the earth

(stones and soils). Other artful creations, such as decorated bottles, gourds, and horns, complete the altar. On the day I visited the exhibition, the candles were lit,

the greens moved slightly as visitors walked

by, and a group of three men stopped in front of this altar to pay homage to Sara- banda. One of the men, a Cuban who has lived in the New York area for thirty years, was obviously educated in the tradition of Afro-Cuban religions, and a colleague and I

began to talk with him. Not a usual museum

goer, he had heard about the exhibition and

justifiably was impressed by the authen-

ticity and honesty involved. It was obvious to him, and to us all, that Thompson has

great respect for the traditions he has put on

display. As this Cuban (unfortunately, I do not know his name) was about to move on, he bowed down to praise Sarabanda, for as

Thompson once said in a lecture, "The altar is not about Sarabanda, but it is Sarabanda."

Other altars present a more complicated museum installation. For example, a

single wood Yoruba ibeji figure, wearing a

few strands of beads, and placed in a Plexi-

glas case, is next to an opulent, tightly packed Brazilian Umbanda altar com- prised of innumerable mass-produced ob-

jects, like plaster busts, small plaster statues, candles, and photographs. Diag- onally across the room is an elegant, under- stated altar to Omolu, the Brazilian deity of disease (fig. 3). Very different from the other altars in the exhibition, this one is minimal, repetitive, and distinctly elegant in its installation. Based on an altar documented by Thompson in Salvador, Bahia, in 1984, it was re-created by Pai Balbino de Paula, a Candomblh priest from Brazil. On a three- stepped corner platform are placed series of shallow earthenware bowls, each filled with an overturned bowl, with perforated dome, covering and concealing a stone for Omolu. Each is also surmounted by a bird-topped small wrought staff that "provide[s] hope for the future as they are attributes of Osanyin, the deity of healing." This particular altar to Omolu also references his ability to "tackle the blight of AIDS." Placed on their sides on the floor in front of the altar, ce- ramic pots and urns are dedicated to those who are afflicted with, or who have died from, AIDS. These altars are part of the section on "Fusion Faiths," which emphasizes the healing and moral reckoning so important to the survival and flourishing of these belief systems.

Based on my observations in Cuba, the installation of, and explication of, some of the altars in this exhibition was at first a bit confusing. I have visited the homes of priests in both Santiago de Cuba and in Havana where entire rooms are set aside for religious observations. Since there is a housing shortage in both cities, reserving an entire room for religious purposes is not economically advantageous. Yet one room was completely transformed into an environ- mental altar, with collected and constructed objects placed on all four walls, with individual altars constructed to various deities, and every architectural detail incorporated into the environment. Another priest's room was bare, save for a stepped, elevated, tiled

SUMMER 1994



altar at one end. The rather large space was reserved for gatherings and celebrations, or the installation of temporary altars and thrones to celebrate specific events. Al- though it is no longer necessary to hide one's devotional art, some contemporary artists maintain the artistic veneer of camouflage as part of the challenge of altar construc- tion. Such is the case with the interna- tionally known and widely exhibited Cuban artist Jose Bedia's Nkisi Sarabanda altar, first constructed in the mid-1980s in Havana and reconstructed for this exhibition. In a publicity flyer distributed by the museum, Bedia states: "When Thompson saw the personal altar at my home, he asked me to make one for the show. Normally people have only one altar for personal ritual, so the one I am creating in New York will be a replica." Placed on the floor, in a corner, the installation purported to reflect the original placement of the altar in a laundry hamper in Bedia's Havana apartment. It can be argued that such constructions are also the product of urban (lack of) space, but it is a bit confusing to view such a straightforward replication in a museum gallery where the new space could have been used as an aesthetic challenge to construct a different altar dedicated to the same spiritual guide. Yet Bedia remained true to the dictates of his religion, Palo Monte, and merely re- created the altar in New York. This installation then winds up being very different than other pieces of Bedia's that I have seen, both in exhibitions and in photographic documentation. Bedia often creates exciting and unusual works which, although paying direct homage to Palo Monte and its unique Cuban context, also are charged with an attitude of experimentation, both in the re- combination of media (painting, assemblage, and sculpture) and the reconfigura- tion of site. I was disappointed at the Bedia installation for "Face of the Gods"; it emu- lated nothing of his usual inventiveness or challenge. But now I better understand why; given the curatorial goal, Bedia's contribu- tion could only be a replication.

A parallel challenge is found in the

FI G. 3 Omolu Altar. Executed by Pal Balbino de Paula, Anailton Mauricio da Conceigio, Eneida Assun&io Sanches, Josd Adario dos Santos, and Dentinha de Xang6.

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altar created by Felipe Garcia Villamil for Sarabanda Rompe Monte, originally constructed in the Bronx in the early 1990s, when a closet in a third-floor apartment became the enclosure for an altar. In the Bronx, the closet site may well have been a product of both a lack of space and the religious dictate that Palo Monte altars be contained in an enclosure. Here the closet may indeed echo the legacy of slavery and governments that attempted to prohibit the practice of these religions.

In conclusion, I would like to men- tion an interesting problematic concerning the entire exhibition. Most of the installations reflect a replication of the altars in their original environment (if one compares the in-context photographs in the book with the altars in the exhibition). It would seem that "true replication" was more important than artistic experimentation. This brings up what I hope is a provocative issue for the curating and installation of such exhibitions. Ultimately should, or can, the museum be used as a site for a new challenge in designing a didactic installation, or must it be used as an empty space to be filled with replicas? It seems that the altar presents a challenge that an installation of paintings,

for example, does not. The altar is a live, religious experience, albeit decontex- tualized in an exhibition. As this present exhibition demonstrates, the altar can be modified to its space/location. There are a variety of elements that can be included at the will of the individual maker/practitioner . . a mix and match challenge. Yet there are also certain stable iconographic markers that cannot be changed. A true collaboration among artist/practitioner, curator, and designer is necessary; it underlies the success of the present exhibition. And as "Face of the Gods" so eloquently testi- fies, religious practice speaks simultaneously to survival and aesthetic growth. An exhibition such as this works to further our understanding, to challenge worn out preconceptions, and to counter the more usual sensationalized accounts of these religious practices. In the realm of the senses, we all can be moved and inspired by these artists, who, under difficult circumstances, have assembled magnificent creations. -

J U DI TH BE T T E L H EIM is professor of art history at San Francisco State University. Her most recent

publication is Cuban Festivals: An Illustrated Anthology (Garland, 1993).

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