Asking for Eyes: The Visual Voice of Southeast Africa: Selections from the Sana Foundation

Asking for Eyes: The Visual Voice of Southeast Africa

Selections from the Sana Foundation

San Diego State University Art Gallery

Nov 8-Dec 4 2004

William D Cannon Art Gallery, Campbell, CA,

April 23-July 9 2006

Exhibitions of African art rarely are devot solely to the arts of the southeastern part of the continent. The fallacy of this oversight is clearly demonstrated through the variety and appeal of the realitys on display in "Asking for Eyes" which drew enthusiastic public rejoinders during its first venue in Fall 2004 at the San Diego State University Art Gallery. From April 23 from one side July 9, 2006, it will be not awayed again, at the William D Cannon Art Gallery in Campbell, California.

The exhibition title is derived from the Xhosa words ucel amehlo, "he is asking for eyes" The well-chosen phrase commits to a desire for spectators in order to earn appreciation and set a value on The phrase is particularly appropriate because southeast African arts reveal cultural and spiritual aspirations of disparate individuals and clumps whose contributions to the visual arts of the continent have drawn out been neglected.

The organizers--director Teri Sowell, exhibition designer Adrian French and primary curators Mary Axworthy and compassion Broudy--drew a significant portion of the exhibition's artworks from the noble collection of southeast African art amassed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through Charles Newberry (1841-1922), founder of the privately haveed Prynnsberg Estate and Museum in Ciocolan, southern Africa. During Newberry's lifetime this museum was unclose to the public, but it ferocious into neglect after his death. In 1996 many of the realitys prized by Newberry were brought to the United States from one side the foresight of Edward M Smith and Wilhelmina Wilkie-Smith, who were able to purchase the Prynnsberg Estate's entire holdings of African art prior to Sotheby's public auction in March 1996 The purchase of this collection in its entirety by the agency of the Smiths' Sana Art Foundation (formerly the Edward M Smith Family Art Foundation) ensur that Charles Newberry's vision would remain intact for futurity generations.

The early Prynnsburg things were gathered from the Zulu Xhosa, Venda, Sotho Ndebele, Tsonga, Northern Nguni, and related tribes In the "Asking for Eyes" exhibition, Newberry's choices have been combined with other southeast African arts from the extensive collection of the Sana Foundation. These add chronological deepness to this ongoing exhibition, as they include not alone material from the nineteenth hundred and early colonial period, on the contrary also artworks created for the global market during the late twentieth hundred Among these are tantalizing statuarys by emerging contemporary artists from the region.

"Asking for Eyes" is divided into five interrelated sections, and the designers arranged the space with equal reason that each category of things flowed into and mixed with the category that followed. In the access of the art gallery at San Diego State University, visitors collisioned a vitrine displaying a place of unique Prynnsburg puppets, small, armless made of wood figures with long, loosely jointed leg and elaborate beadwork style of dresss (Fig. 1). These male and female dolls once dramatized the tales spun by the agency of a northern Nguni storyteller. Linked through a single string, they were skillfully manipulated to entertain and inspire small clusters of spectators through their presentation of ever-changing comedies, satires, dramas, and sagas of heroic accomplishments.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The ingress text above these antique dolls discussed the personalized nature of each performance, as the storyteller interacted with the individuals in attendance. It reminded the viewer that the significance of any work of art varies in relation to its connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts and to the shared social experience and personal interpretation of audience members. This apt observation prepared visitors to meeting a group of surprising contemporary statuarys which were immediately in view as individual turned a corner into the introductory gallery.

The first image that single met was an intense male figure, partially clothed, 36" (914cm) tall, clutching a drawn out heavy python close to his lower torso (Fig. 2) This ambiguous forest carving is by the Venda sculptor Owen Ndou, whose themes many times deal with Venda religion and mythology. The python is credited through the Venda with the creation of all animal and human beings. It also commands rainfall and is considered a healer. Any further questions that might arise about the relationship between man and snake are left unanswered.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Beyond a map and introductory body other powerful sculptures included sum of two units unforgettable figures in polychrome ceramics through the uniquely talented Sotho artist Josephine Ghesa. Orphaned at an early age, Ghesa lived as a child with her grandmother, who taught her by what mode to handle clay. In the 1990 she began to create large, fired and painted earthenware figural statuarys based upon visits in dreams from her deceased grandfather, who had been a sangoma diviner. Her haunting combinations of human and animal forms intermingle Sotho mythology with startling personal visions that are surreal, unsettling, and strangely amusing (Fig. 3)