Happenings

Clothing and Textiles from North and West Africa.
The exhibition displays modern and historical pieces from the collection of the Museum of Natural History in Nuremberg. It presents a variety of outfits, textiles and accessories for everyday wear or use as well as gowns and dresses for special occasions. The exhibits exemplify the craftsmanship of weavers and dyers in North and West Africa and provide insight into the techniques of spinning, weaving and dyeing. Web site of the exhibition.

Embroidered Treasures: Textiles from Central Asia
Approximately 14 bold, colourful embroidered textiles from Central Asia are being presented for the first time at the BMA. These stunning late 19th- to early 20th-century textiles include wall hangings, covers, a wedding canopy, and saddle cover made in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They represent both city cultures and those of formerly nomadic peoples such as the Lakai.

Baltimore—The Walters Art Museum presents Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas: The John Bourne Collection Gift an exhibition of 135 artworks from cultures that rose and fell in Mexico, Central America and Andean South America from 1200 B.C.–A.D. 1530. Drawn from the collection of John Bourne recently gifted to the Walters, this exhibition, on view February 12–May 20, 2012, expresses each culture’s distinctive aesthetics, world view and spiritual ideologies.
Web site of the exhibition

HUMAN ZOOS, The invention of the savage unveils the history of women, men and children brought from Africa, Asia, Oceania and America to be exhibited in the Western world in circus numbers, theatre or cabaret performances, fairs, zoos, parades, reconstructed villages or international and colonial fairs. The practice started in the 16th Century royal courts and continued to increase until the mid-20th Century in Europe, America and Japan.
A corpus of several thousand documents from over 200 international museums and private collections.

Face to Face with Masks from the museum collections.
Cosponsored by the UO Anthropology, Art History, and Ethnic Studies departments, the Oregon Humanities Center, and the College of Arts and Sciences, this exhibit features traditional masks from the museum’s North American, African, and Oceanic collections— including many that have never before been displayed. Web site of the exhibition.

Fantastic creatures have fascinated human beings throughout time and around the world: fabulous, extraordinary beings that may threaten or help us, that may be good or evil.
The exhibition Fantastic Creatures from the British Museum features 170 artefacts spanning several centuries, from the Paleolithic to the present day and across different cultures and civilizations. From the Greek minor god Pan, the Greek Gorgon Medusa, the Egyptian Sphinx, the Chinese dragon and qilin, the Japanese tengu, Medieval creatures, the unicorn, to prints by European masters including Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) and Femme torero by Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973), they are significant objects that cover the wide spectrum of the British Museum’s cultural, geographic and chronological spread.
Discover the web site of the exhibition.

***LAST DAYS***
Hand Held: Personal Arts from Africa showcases a variety of seats, vessels, blankets, combs, hats, and more, created for individual and household use in twenty-one countries across the continent. The first half of the installation focuses on personal individuality as expressed through objects that transcend their basic purpose, proclaiming the wearer's unique style and identity. Domestic objects are showcased in the exhibition's latter half, such as fiber vessels that held water, milk, and grains, or wood and brass containers that protected cosmetics and jewellery.

***SOON IN ZURICH***
This major international loan exhibition challenges conventional perceptions of African art. Bringing together more than one hundred masterpieces drawn from collections in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France, and the United States, it considers eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the twelfth and early twentieth centuries in terms of the individual subjects who lie at the origins of the representations. Analysis of each of these considers the historical circumstances and cultural values that inform the artistic landmarks presented.
See our article in the last issue.

***NEW***
For the first time, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology presents a significant collection of Huichol art from the early part of the last century in Huichol Art and Culture: Balancing the World. There are important ties between Huichol work and Native American, prehispanic, and Hispanic art histories and cultures. Known today for colorful, decorative yarn paintings, the origins of modern Huichol art are found in the earlier Huichol religious arts of the Robert M. Zingg ethnographic collection at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Joaquin Pecci Gallery presents an important group of Ibeji's sculptures, among a fine selection of new acquisitions. On line gallery.