For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection.

For Hearth and Altar African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection The Art Institute of Chicago December 3, 2005-February 20, 2006

"For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection" was an outstanding exhibition that introduced viewers to the aesthetic richness and diversity of its subject. At the same time, it taught about the production, uses, and meanings of pottery vessels for peoples living across the continent. Kathleen Bickford Berzock, the exhibition's curator and curator of African art at The Art Institute of Chicago, opened the installation with the simple but striking juxtaposition of a Jen ritual container from northeastern Nigeria and a Lobi water pot from Burkina Faso to establish her essential premise--that ceramics in Africa are made for both domestic and ritual purposes, with the same vessels sometimes moving from one category to another. Moreover, clay's great capacity to be elaborately modeled and adorned has led to remarkable diversity in the formal, functional, and symbolic aspects of pottery containers.

This was a very smart exhibition, organized around a clear set of ideas and themes, which allowed audiences to understand the integration of ceramics into life and thought across Africa, from north to south and east to west. It was loosely related to the exhibition catalogue of the same name, which presents the Achepohl collection geographically (along with short, thematic "interleaves"). "For Hearth and Altar" was also one of the most elegant installations I have seen in a long time. Entering the vast main gallery after the simple, spare introductory space produced the kind of breath-stopping moment of aesthetic impact that museum installations rarely achieve. The room's expansive openness and high ceiling, transformed with a deft use of color and line, provided a striking backdrop for the Achepohl collection, which was largely installed on low geometric platforms or in long horizontal cases dividing the space. The exhibition's designer chose soft hues--blue, green, taupe, and warm brown--to complement the mostly earthenware-colored vessels. Various design devices, as well as excellent spot lighting, helped to draw the visitors' eyes down to the objects. Thus, color, light, and a generous installation achieved an ambience of quiet beauty for these rather humble, low-fire vessels. The majority of the ceramics were installed so that viewers could see them in the round or at eye level, and the largest examples were presented in regional groupings on open decks for more accessible viewing. Large photomurals and didactic texts were situated on perimeter walls, providing general contextual information but also complementing adjacent thematic groupings of vessels. The conjunction of image and text in continuous, linear clusters, flush with the walls, made an elegant counterpoint to the objects in cases or on platforms.

The exhibition began with a focus on the "Origins of Pottery in Africa," featuring a series of interesting figural and nonfigural vessels from the Middle Niger region of Mali. Berzock acknowledged the controversial issues around the acquisition and presentation of Malian archaeological objects by saying in the explanatory text: "Only by taking account of these works and bringing them to the attention of the public can we hope to increase awareness of the extraordinary importance of preserving and protecting the invaluable works that remain in Africa's ancient sites." This may not answer questions about the legitimacy of ownership, but it does draw attention, at least, to the fact that such issues loom large for both public and private collections.

"For Hearth and Altar" continued with an interesting interplay of thematic and geographical sections. Several sections dealt with how pottery is used: "Pottery and the Home"; "Pottery and Ironworking'; "Palm Wine"; "Beer"; and "Engaging the World Beyond." Geographically, Berzock's groupings loosely moved from western to central to eastern to southern Africa; the collection's strengths lie in vessels from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. Beginning with "Pottery and the Home," the exhibition emphasized the ways pots bring beauty to daily life in addition to performing essential functions. An unusually large and remarkably shaped milk jug from Morocco was featured, as were several graceful, delicately painted wares made by the Jerma of Niger. Nearby were large, overlapping platforms with examples from the Sahel and the Savannah, the first focusing on Mali. A number of strikingly embellished vessels were arranged for easy viewing, one of them an elaborately lidded jar from the Inland Niger Delta surmounted by a seated woman surrounded by snakes; this twentieth century terracotta has intriguing associations with ancient containers from the same area.

The second platform featured oversized storage vessels from Burkina Faso. Some of these huge, wide-mouthed pots come close to functioning as architecture, closely resembling the form and purpose of mud granaries. Wonderful examples by the Turka, Nuna, and Kurumba were highlighted. Slightly off-center, and with uneven profiles, the shape of these pots reinforces the fact they are built by hand, one at a time; their imperfection lends them authenticity and personality.

A nice series of photographs on "Making and Firing Pottery" provided a useful primer on hand-building techniques and open-air firing. The high-quality murals were a welcome contrast in scale to the vessels and, even without the accompanying texts, easily communicated the information without distracting from the pottery. A small section on "Pottery and Iron-working" addressed the essential transformative power of fire to both.

Groupings of ceramic containers from Nigeria and Cameroon made for storing and serving palm wine suggest the importance of this drink as a social lubricant. One case featured a particularly handsome vessel made by the Mfumte of the Nigeria/Cameroon border area along with several others by the neighboring Yamba and Mambila. There was also an elegant row of water and palm wine containers made by the Nupe, Gwari, and Igbo of Nigeria. Label copy drew attention to their distinctive formal features and also suggested the symbolic meanings encoded in their decorative systems. An adjacent open deck was dedicated to the pottery traditions of the Cameroon Grasslands, with vessels ornamented by intriguing representations of serpents, lizards, and other motifs associated with Grasslands royal arts.

The installation then moved to a grouping of beautiful bottle forms from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with several highly burnished and heavily ornamented wares by the Zande or Mangbetu and a few unusual figurative vessels by the Zela and the Lunda or Luba. This row of vessels was installed in a high case so that visitors could see them at eye level. Such shifting modes of presentation, with casework and decks at different levels, helped encourage sustained "looking" at the same time it highlighted the distinctiveness of pottery types by region and functional category.

"Beer" is the topic that organized the presentation of vessels from eastern and southern Africa. A number of groups across the region, such as the Lozi, Shona, and Makonde, produce containers for brewing, serving, and storing beer. Among the Zulu such vessels have important ritual dimensions and are characterized by highly burnished, blackened surfaces frequently decorated with crisp lines or raised bumps. The intersecting topic of "The Potter's Art" was introduced here, using photographs to show a range of decorative techniques employed by artists to transform vessels into aesthetic statements as well as into objects that transcend the purely domestic.

The final gallery of the exhibition, "Engaging the World Beyond," took the argument further to show how particular decorative systems are used to mark the ritual or sacred purpose of certain ceramic vessels. The bumps that identify the ritual significance of beer vessels for the Zulu convey the same signification of special status on a range of containers from across the continent. Standing at the threshold of this gallery, it was easy to see that all the vessels on view had striking raised decoration--from spikes to bumps to ridges. Moreover, many of the examples have figurative components, suggesting linkages between the living and spirit worlds. One Lobi altar vessel surmounted by a chameleon and covered in finely worked, spiky knobs was an especially potent example of artistic transformation. A long shelf the width of the gallery held a row of sacred ceramics, with highly sculptural wares from the Ewe, Baatonu, Kwahu, and Ga'anda. A small case with pots by the Cham-Mwona and the Bena of northeastern Nigeria and the Mafa of the Nigeria/Cameroon border revealed the expressive potentiality of clay. That these vessels map the sacred was reinforced by the decision to paint this gallery space white, the color often associated with the world beyond in Africa.

This exhibition was important for several reasons. Those of us who have built our academic careers around the study and interpretation of African ceramics can only be thrilled that 125 vessels from across the African continent took such pride of place in a major American art museum. This may not have been the first exhibition of African ceramic vessels as art but was certainly one of the most comprehensive and well documented. The handsome catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, authored by Berzock, can be considered an authoritative text on the subject, sharing the results of her intensive and extensive efforts to consult all available published material and area specialists. The care with which the research was conducted was evident as well in the installation, where engaged visitors could learn something about individual objects as well as, more generally, the complex ways ceramics work and hold meanings in the lives of many African peoples. Berzock did an excellent job selecting from the large Achepohl collection, balancing aesthetic considerations with her desire to teach audiences about the multiple ways ceramics work.

It is also true that "For Hearth and Altar" was drawn from one remarkable private collection and was thereby limited by the taste, inclinations, and fortunes of its collector, Keith Achepohl, a noted printmaker and professor emeritus at the University of Iowa. He has been collecting African ceramic vessels since the 1980s, when few individuals focused their acquisitions around this artistic genre. Fortunately, Achepohl's interests have ranged broadly and his artist's eye is finely honed to have yielded an excellent survey of the continent's ceramic achievements. Significantly, more than 70 of the 125 works on display (all published in the catalogue) are promised gifts to The Art Institute of Chicago, where they will join other key collections of ceramics from Asia and the Americas. Their disposition in a public institution makes them accessible for further study and research and for possible inclusion in other exhibitions of African ceramics sure to be organized elsewhere. It is only a pity that this fine show did not travel beyond Chicago.