review of masterpieces from africa at the musée dapper

7/24/2019 Review of Masterpieces from Africa at the Muse Dapper

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Chefs-duvre dAfrique (Masterpieces from Africa)dans les collections du

muse Dapper

Muse Dapper

35, bi rue Paul-Valry 75016 Paris

October 1, 2015!July 16, 2016

Published at Hyperallergic as

In Paris a Museum of African Art Brings Out Its Jewels

http://hyperallergic.com/278551/in-paris-a-museum-of-african-art-brings-out-its-jewels/


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Fang, (Gabon or Equatorial Guinea) The Black Venus (a.k.a. eyema byeri &

Pahouin Venus) (19th century) Fang peoples, Betsi group, wood and pigment. H: 56

cm. Ex Georges de Mir; Louis Carr by 1931; Jacob Epstein; Carlo Monzino Droits

rservs Muse Dapper Paris

Fang, (Gabon or Equatorial Guinea) The Black Venus (a.k.a. eyema byeri &

Pahouin Venus) (detail) (19th century) Fang peoples, Betsi group, wood and pigment

H: 56 cm. Ex Georges de Mir; Louis Carr by 1931; Jacob Epstein; Carlo Monzino

Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris

In his prescient book from 1915 Black Sculpture, Carl Einstein describes certain


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transcendent examples of African sculpture as a form of fixed ecstasy. That

interpretation suits the awe-inspiring poise of The Black Venus (a.k.a. eyema byeri

& Pahouin Venus) (19th century).

Black Venus is an inscrutable, brightly varnished, reliquary carving from the Fang

(Betsi) tribe and it aesthetically dominates Chefs-duvre dAfrique (Masterpieces from

Africa). An exhibition of over a hundred pieces in the Muse Dapper collection of sub-

Saharan Africa art from Central and West Africa. It is a stunningly beautiful figurine that

projects grace and dark luminosity through both the face and body, projecting female

inner power and spiritual glow. She strongly sits in an ineffable radiance. Rather, she

floats, transmitting an emotion of effortless stoic tenderness. Her color is that of shiny

soft tar, like one can see on country roads in the heat of summer.

Looking at this black beauty with her magical elegance easily explains how and why

African art was such an inspiration to rich bohemians like Nancy Cunard and early 20th-

century avant-garde artists like Pablo Picasso, Andr Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and

Henri Matisse. As far back as 1912 the painter/theorist Wassily Kandinsky and Franz

Marc included African artifacts (as art) in theirBlue Rider Almanac, underwritten by the

impressive industrialist art collector Bernhard Koehler - the same year that Kandinsky

published his deservingly famous Concerning the Spiritual in Art. In 1916, the year that

Dada sprang to life, artist/writer/gallerist Marius de Zayas published African Negro Art:

Its Influence on Modern Art, a subject that had already occupied Tristan Tzara deeply.

Indeed, as part of the celebration of the 100th

birthday of Dada, Museum Rietberg in

Zurich is presentingDada Afrika, the first show themed on the Dadaists craze for the art

of Africa. A craze that Barry Schwabsky has characterized as a sketchy politics and

poetics of race. Even before Dada, de Zayas first saw African art in Paris and recognized

its influences on the development of modern art there. Subsequently he proposed an

exhibit of African art to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, who once owned the

Kota (or Ndassa) "Reliquary Figure" (19th century) piece in the Dapper show. In 1914,

one of the first exhibits of African art (as seen in the context of modern art) was held at

Stieglitzs New York City gallery 291.


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Chefs-duvre dAfrique is divided into two large sections, with Central Africa on the

ground level and West Africa on the second floor. Among the highlights are the wood

figures carved by Fang, Baoul and Dogon masters, like the Dogon masterwork

Equestrian Figure (circa 17th /18th century) but also the lost wax cast gold disk

Pectoral disk akrafokonmu (18th century) from the Ashanti people of Cte dIvoire.

Dogon (Mali) Equestrian Figure (circa 17th /18th century) wood & pigment. H: 81 cm.

Ex Lester Wunderman


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Ashanti (Cte dIvoire) Pectoral disk akrafokonmu (18th century) lost wax cast gold

D:17 cm Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris

The show follows on the heals of another outstanding show of African art; last yearsLes

Matres de la sculpture de Cte-d'Ivoire (Masters of Sculpture from Ivory Coast) at

Muse du Quai Branly. But this show is personal. Chefs-duvre dAfriquehonors the

Muse Dappers founding connoisseur Michel Leveau, who died November 14th

, 2012 on

the island of Gore, off Dakar (Senegal) as he was preparing an exhibition to be held in

Africa. Long passionate about Africa after working there, Leveau had created theDapper

Foundation for African Arts in 1983 in Amsterdam. Interestingly, the dapper name

Dapper comes from the seventeenth century Dutch humanist writer Olfert Dapper, whowroteDescription of Africain 1689.

Leveau never acquired anything in situ, straight out of Africa, however, but bought

exclusively in the West, especially at Sothebys and from Rive Gauche galleries and

private collectors, including Robert Visser, Carlo Monzino, Andr Fourquet and Hubert


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Goldet. Evidently Leveau appreciated provenance, as demonstrated by the fact that some

of the pieces in the collection were formerly the property of Helena Rubinstein, Lester

Wunderman, Louis Carr and Georges de Mir. Some are unique and without any

equivalent in the world, like the sculptures from Gabon (Fang, Kota, Punu), Cameroon

(Bangwa), Benin (Fon) and Mali (Dogon, Soninke). Leveau had opened the Muse

Dapper in Paris in May 1986 and it is now led by Leveaus wife Christiane Falgayrettes-

Leveau, who also is the curator of Chefs-duvre dAfrique.

Chefs-duvre dAfriqueputs on view an array of outstanding works of African art from

the Dapper collection. Including some which had previously belonged to leading

individuals who took part in the early appreciation of African art: Dadaist Tristan Tzara,

Charles Ratton and Paul Guillaume (the French art dealer who brought African art to the

attention of Guillaume Apollinaire, who in turn organized the Premire Exposition dArt

Ngre et dArt Ocanien in 1919) and sculptor Jacob Epstein. Indeed The Black Venus

was in the collection of Epstein.


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Baoul (Cte d'Ivoire) Statuette de conjoint mystique blolo bian (circa 19th century)

wood H:45 cm Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris

The other carving that I found outstanding, aesthetically striking, and genuinely

delightful for its synthesis of introspective contemplation and formal detail, is the Baoul

Statuette de conjoint mystique blolo bian (Spouse Statuette Mystical Blolo Bian) (circa

19th century) from the Cte d'Ivoire. This intensely detailed piece is terrific in terms of

its magical presence - even as it does not appear to be a work of the Baoul Matre de

Himmelheber (there is no distinctively upwardly tilted head). As with many Baoul

figures, Statuette de conjoint mystique blolo bian is a blolo bian (spirit husband),


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representing a dream supreme spouse from the hinder world. This debonair carving is the

locus for such a spirit spouse, and once was the center of a magical shrine where a jealous

or vengeful spirit spouse could be appeased.

Installation view Muse Dapper with (right) Bangwa (Cameroun) Statue lefem

leffigie dune princesse (circa 1926) wood and pigment, H: 85 cm, Collecte en 1897-

1898 par Gustav Conrau puis rapporte en Europe en 1899 Anciennes collections du

Museum fr Vlkerkunde de Berlin dArthur Speyer de Charles Ratton dHelena

Rubinstein et de Harry A. Franklin Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris


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Bakongo (Democratic Republic of the Congo) Nkisi Statuette (late-18th century)

wood, feathers, vegetal fiber, shell, mirror, hide, pigment H38 cm. Collected by Robert

Visser in 1903 Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris

Also grabbing my attention was the lugubrious magical-religious Nkisi Statuette (late-

18th century) from The Democratic Republic of the Congo that was produced by the

Bakongo people. It is an amalgamated piece that visually screams of a fearlessness that

could inspire a new generation of aficionado enthusiasts. During the colonial period,

these statuettes were called "fetish" or "nail fetishes," as some of them are covered with

nails from head to toe. But nkisialso refers to an invisible world of personalized power


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that can be controlled by means of ritual practices.

Carved often as a human or a dog, their eyes are usually inlaid pieces of glass or mirrors.

They also include a receptacle containing different substances that is frequently attached

to the skull or affixed to the abdomen. The stuff inside is what magically activates the

statue. For me, this objects look of spectacular spirited defiance is salutary.

Bakongo figures threatening appearance make them a simple symbol of African

witchcraft. But they are produced with a wide variety of soothsayer intentions. With

them, perhaps we can see why the la bohme artists engagement with African works

were primarily limited to their formal qualities, as the meaning and function of the arts

divinational magic remains mysterious even now. Not least of all, because they serve(d)

multiple functions. For example, the Soninke Altar Figure (circa 10th century) from

Mali, has a strange sculptural quality that is beguilling. Was it used in initiation rituals of

those developing esoteric knowledge? Was it employed in a cult that worshipped the

ancestors? or ensured the fertility of women and the land? or for purposes of curing the

sad or ill? Or was it all the above??

In an art world overshadowed by the supposed clarity of celebrity branding and market

valuations, studying Chefs-duvre dAfrique reveals a plethora of genuine mysteries

behind the spiritual and social imperatives that greatly shaped and inspired what we now

call modern art.

Joseph Nechvatal


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Soninke (Mali) Altar Figure (circa 10th century) wood & pigment. H: 103 cm. Ex

Lester Wunderman Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris


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Kota or Ndassa (Congo) "Reliquary Figure" (19th century) wood copper brass. H: 60 cm.

Ex Paul Guillaume; Alfred Stieglitz Droits rservs Muse Dapper Paris

review of masterpieces from africa at the musée dapper

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