Reckoning with lifeDmitry Samarovon January 18, 2023 at 1:00 pm

I rarely read wall labels in art exhibitions as I find the verbiage gets in the way of my experience. My goal is to have a one-on-one reckoning with what I’m looking at without someone else’s words confusing or directing my reaction.

The curators of this survey of some 250 sculptures, masks, and ornaments from all over the African continent have made my modus operandi difficult. Signage and wall texts throughout allude to their aim of reframing how this non-Western work is seen in as Eurocentric a venue as can be imagined: an encyclopedic art museum. They want the viewer to see these pieces of wood, bone, leather, dirt, hair—most made for devotional and communal rituals—the way their makers intended. They propose that we consider various metrics of beauty and ugliness as we stroll through.

This is a fool’s errand. There’s no way to recreate the original context so many years after these often sacred objects were taken from their places of origin, shipped halfway across the world, and displayed as decorations in some rich American’s or European’s home. Even the wall texts admit to not knowing what tribe every piece came from or the dates it was fashioned. All I hope after breaking my rule and reading is that whoever sold the work got a good price.

I’ve spent hours at a time in this show and had many powerful encounters with these figures and faces. I don’t for a second presume to know the intent of the sculptors who cut down a tree trunk, fashioned it into human form, then pierced it with nails, knives, and sharp shards of glass. I look at what they made and recognize a base-level reckoning with what it is to be alive. It’s all anyone can ask for from a work of art. Beauty has nothing to do with it.

“The Language of Beauty in African Art”Through 2/27: Thu 11 AM-8 PM, Fri-Mon 11 AM-5 PM, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan, 312-443-3600, artic.edu, general admission $14-$35 (see website for free days, discounts, and a breakdown of admission fees)

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