The starting point of the Bologna exposition is Ezio Bassani’s collection, one of the major experts of the African continent and, at the same time, refined collector who has been studying and selecting objects and handicrafts from the Sub–Saharan areas. Perhaps because it is tied in to a completely artisan manual ability, African art always had trouble being defined as such and so enter by right into the international art circuits, except for the recent auctions and for the exhibitions that some museums have dedicated to the subject.

As well as the traditional local production, Bologna’s exhibition contemplates also the handcraft that the rich lords of Europe commissioned to African artists: teapots, combs and various house decorations that fuse the peculiarities of “black art” with the iconographies of the European art. The dominating artistic form is sculpture, made without outlines and preparatory sketches, directly onto wood or ivory; next to the statues - divinities, idols, tribe chiefs but also groups of mothers and children o animal depictions – there is also a rich collection of masks, ritual objects laden with spiritual meanings, beautiful in their composure but also capable of conveying a sense of unease and death.

Africa Nera. Arte e Cultura
Where: Museo Civico Archeologico, Via dell'Archiginnasio 2, Bologna
When: until 30 June 2002
Opening times: 900 - 1830; closed mondays
Tickets: € 6; conc. € 4
Skira Catalogue € 25
Info: Tel. 051 235204
Mail

May.2002

Museo Civico Archeologico
Arte Africana
African Art at the Smithsonian