An African art show that has universal appeal
WASHINGTON, DC: Gently touch a pool of water in a darkened gallery, and create a rippling image. Listen to a recording of night-time sounds. Marvel at a basket from central Africa that holds the universe.
Art lovers are encouraged to do more than just look at African Cosmos: Stellar Arts. The show at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art draws on the ancient and the contemporary to explore how Africans have keenly observed the skies to make sense of man and his place in the universe.
“Africans have done this over time and, along the way, created great works of art,’’ said curator Christine Mullen Kreamer.
Karel Nel, the SA artist behind the touchable water-and-light installation, said: “When one looks at the immensity of the sky, it’s quite inspiring and daunting at the same time. We lose ourselves in it, and we also have to find ourselves in it.’’
Kreamer first conceived of the show in 2001, when she was asked to write an essay that explored what would become the unifying themes of African Cosmos. She met Nel a year or two later, and was further inspired when she heard about his work as artist-in-residence for a team of scientists exploring a twodegree-square field of the universe.
African Cosmos will be at the Smithsonian until December and then will travel, in slightly different form, to museums in New Jersey and Georgia. Nel said he hoped a version would also come to SA.
African Cosmos includes about 100 objects – amulets from ancient Egypt, carvings and weavings from west and central Africa, contemporary installations and paintings from SA, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Kreamer borrowed pieces from commercial galleries, SA’s National Museum, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and university museums across the US.
She collected essays from anthropologists, astrophysicists, artists and historians for a 368-page book that accompanies the show. Financial support came from the SA government.
In a review of the results of her efforts, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter said African Cosmos invited “admiration, inquiry, meditation”.
A basket woven by the Tabwa people of Ghana has a lid representing the Earth’s curved surface, legs, the cardinal points, and a handle, the Milky Way.
An untitled 1989-90 painting by SA’s Gavin Janjes, who has studied astronomy and ancient Khoisan rock paintings, depicts chalky figures dancing against a spangled sky.
The deep past shares space with 21st century science. Nel’s Deep Survey, a 2009 installation, uses an astronomer’s video animation, data collected by space investigators and night-time recordings.
Nel’s Trembling Field, also from 2009, is constructed of carbon silicate, etched mirror, water and light. Touch the shallow water, and ripples are projected on to a screen in an effect that is mesmerising in its simplicity, and in its suggestion of vastness. Nel said visitors often were unsure whether they were supposed to just look, or really can touch.
“I suppose that’s always been our relationship with the skies,’’ he said.
“It’s always been ambivalent.’’