Magazines - Tribal Art Summer 2009

By Floriane Morin

Introduction
Where to begin? By scaling the perilous steps that lead to the storage area where the African ceramics of the Barbier-Mueller collection are kept. There the eye skims across round bodies and wide-open mouths, surfaces textured, polished, or incised. A paradox becomes clear to anyone who might observe this diverse group: the initial chaos of the thousands of shapes and colors, further fueled by exchanges between figures and receptacles, falls away before their commonality. They are all the children of the land of Africa, and this allows a certain harmony between them. Confusion gives way to wonderment. These are pieces of an extraordinary geographic and temporal puzzle. Representing the scale of the continent, the African ceramics of this collection have been shaped into an exhibition that vibrantly pays homage to clay and to the hands of demiurge potters that formed it.
The challenge of creating a show that contributes to African art history through a material so fundamental as clay—rather than through a regional or artistic style—is one that took a while for the museum to realize. Time was needed to fully comprehend the scale of the subject matter and to define the scope of the research.