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 devoted solely to the arts of the southeastern part of the continent. The fallacy of this oversight is clearly demonstrated by the variety and appeal of the objects on display in "Asking for Eyes," which drew enthusiastic public responses during its first venue in Fall 2004 at the San Diego State University Art Gallery. From April 23 through July 9, 2006, it will be presented 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 refers to a desire for spectators in order to earn appreciation and esteem. The phrase is particularly appropriate because southeast African arts reveal cultural and spiritual aspirations of disparate individuals and groups whose contributions to the visual arts of the continent have long been neglected.

The organizers--director Teri Sowell, exhibition designer Adrian French, and primary curators Mary Axworthy and Ruth Broudy--drew a significant portion of the exhibition's artworks from the superb collection of southeast African art amassed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Charles Newberry (1841-1922), founder of the privately owned Prynnsberg Estate and Museum in Ciocolan, South Africa. During Newberry's lifetime this museum was open to the public, but it fell into neglect after his death. In 1996, many of the objects prized by Newberry were brought to the United States through 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 Smiths' Sana Art Foundation (formerly the Edward M. Smith Family Art Foundation) ensured that Charles Newberry's vision would remain intact for future generations.

The early Prynnsburg objects were gathered from the Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Sotho, Ndebele, Tsonga, Northern Nguni, and related peoples. 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 depth to this ongoing exhibition, as they include not only material from the nineteenth century and early colonial period, but also artworks created for the global market during the late twentieth century. Among these are tantalizing sculptures by emerging contemporary artists from the region.

"Asking for Eyes" is divided into five interrelated sections, and the designers arranged the space so that each category of objects flowed into and mixed with the category that followed. In the entry of the art gallery at San Diego State University, visitors encountered a vitrine displaying a set of unique Prynnsburg puppets, small, armless wooden figures with long, loosely jointed legs and elaborate beadwork costumes (Fig. 1). These male and female puppets once dramatized the tales spun by a northern Nguni storyteller. Linked by a single string, they were skillfully manipulated to entertain and inspire small groups of spectators through their presentation of ever-changing comedies, satires, dramas, and sagas of heroic accomplishments.

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The entry text above these antique puppets 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 context and to the shared social experience and personal interpretation of audience members. This apt observation prepared visitors to encounter a group of surprising contemporary sculptures, which were immediately in view as one turned a corner into the introductory gallery.

The first image that one met was an intense male figure, partially clothed, 36" (91.4cm) tall, clutching a long, heavy python close to his lower torso (Fig. 2). This ambiguous wood carving is by the Venda sculptor Owen Ndou, whose themes often deal with Venda religion and mythology. The python is credited by the Venda with the creation of all animal and human beings. It also controls rainfall and is considered a healer. Any further questions that might arise about the relationship between man and serpent are left unanswered.

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

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In the following gallery rooms, objects were presented within three additional sections or "Spheres" that flowed easily from one to the next, each introduced through proverbs. The first of these was the Ancestral Sphere, which blended into an area called the Personal Sphere. The Zulu adages "Dreams are our eyes in the night" and "Those who do not hear the voice of their ancestors are like trees without roots" heralded a varied collection of carved wooden headrests. Although these small and intensely private furnishings have many cultural functions, text panels explained that headrests serve to link living and departed family members by conveying dreams of ancestral guidance.

Beyond the headrests was an exhibit of abstract and appealing child figures, created individually for girls and young women of the Xhosa, Tsonga, Ndebele, Ntwane, and Sotho peoples. Personally as well as spiritually significant, these small and varied figures blend the private sphere of children's games with a family's desire for ancestral blessing of betrothals and marriages. Included in this section was another rare Prynnsburg treasure: a delicate veil of parallel reeds, held together and accented by colorful beads. Long ago, this fragile assemblage concealed the face of a Sotho girl when she appeared in public during her extended initiation into womanhood.

Other unusual artworks in the Ancestral-Personal Sphere were designed to care for infants. An elaborate pregnancy apron made from the skin of a goat was personally created for an expectant Zulu woman by her husband. He was assisted by the women in his family, who added symbolic beadwork. The apron reminded the ancestors that the family had killed the goat and had offered it to them during a feast in their honor. The offering alerted these deceased relatives that a child had been conceived. When worn by the pregnant wife, the goatskin garment ensured that the ancestors would be pleased to protect the child in the womb, and to watch over its safe birth and healthy infancy.

Two attractive necklaces that Xhosa mothers once wore to soothe their nursing babies were also included among these artworks. One was constructed of tiny aromatic wooden rods that would feel smooth and click together pleasantly if handled by an infant. The other was a smaller necklace strung with tiny dried roots or cobs, which were probably moistened so their medicinal qualities and pleasant taste and texture would appeal to a teething child.

In the following Personal-Social Sphere, the Xhosa proverb "I am a person through other people" introduced almost too-rich an array of beadwork, complete costumes, articles of personal adornment, elegant utensils and staffs, ceramic uphiso and ukhamba pots for ritualized hospitality, incised wooden milk containers, and beaded basketry. Included were numerous artworks that served as outward signs of a person's position within a community. Professional male carvers made wooden walking sticks and staffs for prominent Swazi, Tsonga, and Sotho individuals, who also enjoyed graceful wooden utensils, figural tobacco pipes, and small but imaginative snuff containers. Among the costumes was the full assemblage of a prestigious Zulu warrior, including the amambatha collar of leopard skin and other signs of distinction, and the well-known cowhide shield that was carried in battle.

This section demonstrated that until the late twentieth century, many women of southeastern Africa continued to use distinctive hats, clothing, and ornaments through which their ethnicity, age, and marital status could be identified. The craftsmanship of generations of these unsung women artists was especially revealed through their intricate beadwork. Colorful patterns of Zulu courtship panels communicated messages between young men and women, but their personal variation allowed for privacy of interpretation. Beaded dance staffs were constructed by Zulu adolescent girls for individually designed betrothal performances. Apronlike "front skirts" such as lighabi, isiphephethu, and ijogolo were constructed with impossibly dense rows of tiny beadwork to proclaim each stage of an Ndebele woman's life from childhood to old age. Ndebele brides wore long, white nyoga wedding trains that their mothers and aunts wove entirely of beads on threads, without cloth backing. These bridal garments contrasted sharply with multilayered isikoti wedding capes created by Zulu women, on which each brilliant layer of cotton cloth was bordered with a different beaded pattern. Xhosa wives presented their husbands, fathers, and sons with impressive ensembles of up to seventy beaded ornaments to enhance their male full-length cloth attire.

The exhibition's Personal-Social Sphere also demonstrated that the individualistic artists of southeast Africa have made imaginative use of materials for at least the past century. Over time, varieties of the distinctive disk-shaped inhloko headdress of Zulu women have been fashioned from a range of fibers that has included ochred wool, human hair, and crimson polyester thread. Throughout the region, European factory cloth, buttons, safety pins, wire, metal studs, and vinyl asbestos disks have been effectively employed in artworks, as each generation has discovered local uses for exotic imports.

Therefore, this section blended easily into the handsome presentation of the final Global Sphere, which the wall text introduced through the Xhosa proverb, "A bird builds with other birds' feathers." It was evident in this gallery that in marketing commodities internationally, creative southeast African artists have reached beyond local tradition. Their trade dolls, both old and new, could be clearly distinguished from the abstract child figures of the Ancestral-Personal sphere because representational characteristics have added to the export appeal of the dolls. Food containers offered for trade have also taken on unaccustomed European forms. One of the most graceful artworks included here was a delicate Zulu pedestal plate from Charles Newberry's Prynnsberg collection, woven of slender wires of steel and copper (Fig. 4). At San Diego State University, it was displayed next to two brightly patterned baskets created recently in plastic-coated telephone wire by Elliott Mkhize, a contemporary artist in Durban (Fig. 5). Perhaps a century ago, the woven pedestal plate was designed for secular markets far removed from southeast Africa, demonstrating that imported wire has long been an artistic medium in Zulu trading history. While extensive cultural interaction seems more visible here than elsewhere in the continent, we were reminded in this gallery that international marketing is not new to sub-Saharan cultures.

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The Global Sphere barely suggested the dynamic popular culture that is currently evident in post-apartheid South Africa. Nevertheless, creative energy resonated throughout the exhibition's presentation of fluid, interlocking, and developing spheres of human life. Mentally, the viewer returned full circle through the spheres, to the powerful and disquieting contemporary sculptures in the introductory gallery. Here again was the wall text reminder that the significance of any work of art constantly varies, in relation to each individual who contemplates it. In an exhibition of African art, it was especially refreshing to encounter emphases on the flux of continual change and on the centrality of unique personhood.

"Asking for Eyes" will be on exhibition at the William D. Cannon Art Gallery from April 23-July 9, 2006, and additional venues are also being considered. The exhibition was initiated and coordinated by art historian Teri Sowell at San Diego State University, whose students of African art were given the opportunity to enroll in her Curatorial Practices seminar, in order to develop a unique exhibition. Nineteen undergraduate and graduate students volunteered to manage all aspects of the exhibition's development, research, fundraising, installation and graphic design, marketing, education, and community outreach, including the publication of the handsome illustrated 109-page catalogue, with 6 essays, 117 illustrations in color, collection list, and bibliography.

The catalogue is available for $20.00 plus shipping from [e-mail], or call 760-737-2903.