"Ex Africa semper aliquid novi", "Always something new from Africa" wrote Plinius The Elder in the "Naturalis Historia", and the objects featured in an exhibition currently on at Bologna's Museo Civico Archeologico (via dell'Archiginnasio 2) perfectly prove Plinius was right.
Curated by Gigi Pezzoli and the late Ezio Bassani, "Ex Africa" (through 8th September) is one of the largest exhibitions of African artifacts ever organised in Italy with pieces on display on loan from prestigious institutions all over the world. It features 270 pieces arranged into nine sections conceived as journeys through the continent. Following these paths visitors will discover different works of arts and artists, materials and techniques and travel through time and places.
The curators conceived the event as centred on "African arts", with the plural and highlight that artworks by African artists were often distorted by Western classifications that usually considered them as anonymous.
The event opens with ancient wooden sculptures, introduces visitors to the refined court of Benin, looks at art from Mali, analyses the Vudun aesthetics, passes through a section dedicated to collections of exotic curiosities, and explores the influence of Africa on Europe via works such as Man Ray's "Noire et Blanche" (1926).
Among the most iconic pieces included in the exhibition there are the heads from the Nigerian town of Ife. Located in the South-West part of the country, in the Osun state, Ife is an ancient town in Yoruba history and is regarded as the cradle of civilization. The beautifully sculpted terracotta or bronze heads included in the event represented divine kings (Oni).
Yet this is just one story included in the exhibition, there's more to explore in the various sections including the intricate Afro-Portuguese ivory carvings commissioned to local artists, or the forgotten story of the African exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1922.
This event, organised by archaeologist Carlo Anti and anthropologist Aldobrandino Mochi, was a pioneering one as the curators dared to focus on the artists who had made the pieces, rather than the continent as a whole, enraging the critics.
The exhibition then introduces works by contemporary artists, such as Malala Andrialavidrazana's prints exploring the cultural mutations brought by the globalisation and El Anatsui's sculptures made with found materials such as discarded aluminum caps and plastic seals from liquor bottles, which he flattens, shapes, perforates, and painstakingly assembles with copper wire.
On display there is also a chair by Gonçalo Mabund, an artist with a vision that evokes Braque or Picasso's imagery: from a distance his thrones look as if they were made with an assortment of metal pieces, but getting nearer you will discover they are actually assemblages of rifles, rocket launchers, guns and grenades from the Mozambique Civil war that divided the region.
With this exhibition the curators focused on one main mission – destroying stereotypes such as the ones stating that African art is made by anonymous artists. By re-shifting the attention on the actual quality and beauty of the pieces and identifying the masters, visitors can finally appreciate them.
Besides, the curators also invite visitors to look at the masks, relics, female and fertility statues on display and try and spot links with European artists such as Modigliani, Picasso and many more. The subtitle of the exhibition "Storie e identità di un'arte universale" (Histories and Identity of a Universal Art), hopes indeed to inspire such global connections.
It is a shame that there wasn't the opportunity to introduce in this event more examples of African textiles (that was a missed opportunity) and that the spaces didn't allow to include also more established artists such as Bodys Isek Kingelez, or representatives of a youngest generation, like Serge Attukwei Clottey, Yaw Owusu or Ibrahim Mahama, yet "Ex Africa" offers intriguing perspectives on artists who had to wait decades before being acknowledged for their skills and vision, and remains a first step towards a new de-colonised presentation of African arts.
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