Africa’s Story is Woven into ‘Global Patterns’

International Fri 06-05-2011

Africa’s Story is Woven into ‘Global Patterns’
By Sebastian Smee | Boston Globe

African objects are often displayed in art museums as if they had no history. If history does come into it, curators tend to dwell on accounts of the Western taste for such pieces. The actual cultures from which the objects come might as well not exist.

Vlisco 02 by African Vibes Magazine

“Global Patterns: Dress and Textiles in Africa,’’ a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, signals an important shift away from this longstanding tendency. The show — a limited but impressive survey of fabric and clothing from a range of sub-Saharan African cultures — is a chance for the museum to show off the fruits of a concerted collecting campaign that kicked off less than 10 years ago.

The resulting display is less focused on the criteria that usually preoccupy collectors — connoisseurship, scarcity, value — and more intent on questions of meaning and context. Many of the works are contemporary, few are desperately valuable, and all have been chosen not just for their beauty (which is in most cases considerable), but for their cultural and historical resonance.

Malick Sidibe, Potrait 1969

The show as a whole reminds us how various are the cultures of Africa, how complex their history, and how intricately connected they have always been to the rest of the world. The fact that so much is communicated through clothes is telling: Textiles in Africa, even more than some other parts of the world, have always revealed and signified, even as they conceal and cover.

African patterns, in particular, come congested with meanings, both specific and general. A man’s “kente’’ cloth from the Asante people in Ghana, for instance, has stripes that signify a species of dragonfly that can walk on water — shorthand for a warning against deceptive behavior (“just because the insect can walk on water, don’t think you can’’).

Other “kente’’ textiles communicate history, moral aspirations or warnings, and proverbs. They can, according to curator Christraud Geary, be devastatingly specific: A woman might, for instance, don an outfit that announces, “My husband is a liar.’’

Vlisco

Vlisco by African Vibes Magazine

Between them, Geary and her co-curator, Pamela Parmal, have the ability to see these objects as they should be seen: not as cardboard cutouts reinforcing a Western caricature of African aesthetics, but fully in the round. Parmal’s expertise runs to textiles and clothes across cultures, and she brings an eye for the intricacies of technique. Geary, meanwhile, is a trained anthropologist, with experience in several African countries, and particular expertise in African photography.

The combined effect of these different perspectives is a small show that runs deep.

The items on display extend beyond textiles to sculptures and masks. Many emphasize the importance of headwear and body adornments. There are also photographs and postcards of Africans posing for portraits. They demonstrate the premium many Africans place on self-presentation.

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Posted By: Allan Kapten

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