More than the human figure: the Marc and Denyse Ginzberg collection of African art.

One of Marc Ginzberg's first purchases of African art was a snuff bottle. Having grown up around his parents' collection of Asian snuff bottles, he was comfortable with the forms and was also interested in how artists from different areas of the world employed their own artistic vernaculars to create an object that served the same function. Expanding from this secure beginning, Marc and and his wife, Denyse, developed an outstanding and well-known collection of African masks and sculptures, a source often tapped by museum curators for special exhibitions. Not quite a decade ago, however, they began to divest: as a great many of their African pieces moved into major museums, they returned to the start, this time shaping a more tightly focused selection of artworks.

The Ginzbergs' new collection celebrates the genius of the African artists who transform common objects like pots, shields, blades (Fig. 1), and cups into exceptional works of art. The fact that there is no English word for this genre illustrates how these arts have been ignored. Rather than saying what unites them, we are forced to say what they do not portray--the human body; they are "nonfigural."

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What attracts the Ginzbergs to these works is the marriage of form and function, use and meaning. The artist must produce an object that fulfills a utilitarian purpose, but he or she moves beyond this charge to make it aesthetically satisfying as well. Occasionally the aesthetic focus supersedes function, elevating the piece to "uselessness." Many African throwing knives (Fig. 1c), as Ginzberg points out, are so elaborate that there is no place for the thrower to hold it.

A connoisseur's appreciation of the object is heightened by an understanding of the tools and processes employed. In Africa, masterpieces can be the result of seemingly simple or low-tech techniques. Most potters, for example, do not use potters' wheels. They produce wonderfully symmetrical works with the coil method, often building the top and bottom of larger pieces separately and then combining the two halves. They might fire large quantities of pots not in kilns but in open pits, where beautiful markings are caused by serendipitous contact with fire and ash (Fig. 2).

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Most artworks in this category are designed to be handled; use, in turn, completes the beauty of the piece. Kuba cups that have held palm wine and been passed from hand to hand gain a deep, lustrous glow (Fig. 3). The pestle is basic to the preparation of foods and medicines. Its prolonged daily use by women creates a patina and results in abstract and sometimes surprising shapes (Fig. 4).

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European interest in African art peaked after the 1897 British Punitive Expedition to the Benin kingdom resulted in a market flooded with exquisite figural bronzes and ivories of a quality that rivaled that of European sculptures. Soon afterward, modern artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque began to look to African figural sculpture and masks for inspiration. But the art world ignored the richness and aesthetic quality of the continent's nonfigural genres--exquisitely made bells (Fig. 5), gongs (Fig. 6), pipes (Fig. 7), cloth (Fig. 8), stools and backrests (Fig. 9) and such--dismissing them as "ethnographic objects" or "items of material culture." While figural works slowly moved into art museums, nonfigural forms remained in natural history presentations and in the collections of missionary and colonial families and institutions.

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American and European cultures continue to relegate many of these works to the "decorative arts" category. 1 In contrast many African cultures ascribe to them great cultural and ritual importance. Ivory Lega spoons, for example, are used in Bwami initiation to teach moral principles (Fig. 10). Elegant Mangbetu hairpins (Fig. 11) and beautifully decorated Songye axes (Fig. 1b) become prestige objects, signaling the wealth and importance of the bearer. Miniature Dogon shrine ladders, too small for human use, mark entry into ritual spaces (Fig. 12).

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Nonfigural arts began to be collected by Westerners at the same time as or earlier than figural arts. Missionaries and colonial officials, Mr. Ginzberg points out, accepted and even promoted such objects because they perceived them as nonreligious and because they disapproved of the nude imagery typical of African figure sculpture. Their support, however, backfired: the art market valued works that it saw to be precolonial and untouched by external influence, whether European, Indian, Islamic, or Christian. For Marc Ginzberg, such distinctions are irrelevant; he feels that objects should be judged on the merits of their form and design. Besides, with the European and Arab presence on the west and east coasts of Africa in the fifteenth century and earlier, very few African arts have truly been unaffected by outsiders.

Because good nonfigural African pieces are still difficult to obtain in the United States, Mr. Ginzberg recommends that interested collectors look to Europe as a source. Most of the works move from Africa to Europe and stay there. European dealers who would, without a second's thought, travel to the United States to promote a Fang figure or a Kongo nkisi do not find it profitable to do so for a group of comparatively inexpensive spoons or pots. Collections in Europe that focus on this nonfigural material, such as African shields (Fig. 13), are therefore much larger and more sophisticated than most of those in the United States.

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The first art exhibition dedicated to African textiles and objects worn or carried was mounted in 1972: Roy Sieber's groundbreaking "African Textiles and Decorative Arts" (organized by the Museum of Modern Art). "African Furniture and Household Objects" followed in 1980 (curated by Sieber and organized by the American Federation of Arts). There were no masks or figures, though Sieber included many works that incorporated portrayals of humans and animals. He commented on his selection: "The almost exclusive choice of figurative examples [in other exhibitions] reflects western taste; in reality 'sculptural' types represent but a small fraction of the total. We have tried to redress this overemphasis by choosing examples in, roughly at least, the proportion that represents their hue appearance in traditional contexts" (1980:15).

Occasionally exhibitions have presented specific art forms devoid of figural designs, such as Kuba textiles. Ethiopian crosses (Fig. 14), some borrowed from the Ginzberg collection, were recently highlighted in an exhibition organized by the Israel Museum. (2) Only in such narrow presentations, however, are non-figural arts given their due.

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The Ginzbergs are on a mission to bring these works into the mainstream of African-art appreciation and study. Marc Ginzberg points out that today it would be difficult and costly to assemble an excellent collection of figures and masks; on the other hand it is still possible to develop a world-class collection of nonfigural art. The universal nature of many of these works--cups, shields, pots--makes them immediately accessible to novices. Fakes are still relatively few, but as interest and prices increase, Ginzberg expects more of these to appear on the market.

Thanks to the Ginzbergs, Roy Sieber, and others, new attention is being paid to nonfigural arts. Through his recent publication, African Forms, (3) and a traveling exhibition (through August 8 at the Museum for African Art, New York), Marc Ginzberg, with Denyse, hopes to bring these genres to the attention of the broader art community.

[This article was accepted for publication in September 2000.]

Many thanks to Marc and Denyse Ginzberg for welcoming me into their home, for showing me their collection, and for sharing with me their enthusiasm and their insights into nonfigural arts. I have unabashedly incorporated these into this article.

(1.) Decorative arts in the United States are beginning to move out of a secondary category and deservedly coming into their own as a field of study in, universities and museums.

(2.) "Daughter of Zion: Orthodox Christian Art from Ethiopia," Israel Museum, Jerusalem (March 2000-2001).

(3.) The catalogue is distributed in the United States by Abbeville Publishing Group, New York. Editions are available in English, French, and Italian.

References cited

Biebuyck, Daniel P. 1973. Lega Culture: Art, Initiation, and Moral Philosophy among a Central African People. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Binkley, David A. 1992. "The Teeth of the Nyim: The Elephant and Ivory in Kuba Art," in Elephant: The Animal and Its Ivory in African Culture, ed. Doran H. Ross, pp. 277-91. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Ginzberg, Marc. 2001. African Forms. Milan: Skira.

Northern, Tamara. 1984. The Art of Cameroon. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Puccinelli, Lydia. 1999. Entry for Ethiopian crosses, in Selected Works from the Collection of the National Museum of African Art, vol. 1. Washington, DC: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Schildkrout, Enid and Curtis Keim. 1990. African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire. New York: American Museum of Natural History.

Sieber, Roy. 1980. African Furniture and Household Objects. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Thompson, Robert Farris. 1989. "Body and Voice: Kongo Figurative Musical Instruments," in Sounding Forms: African Musical Instruments, ed. Marie-Therese Brincard. New York: American Federation of the Arts.

Wood, John George. 1868-70. The Natural History of Man; Being an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Uncivilized Races of Men. Volume 1: Africa. London: G. Routledge & Sons.

ELISABETH L. CAMERON is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.