IMAGES OF POWER: ART OF THE CAMEROON GRASSLANDS
APRIL 23-AUGUST 14, 2011
Images of Power highlights two iconic works in the Neuberger Museum’s permanent collection – an expressive Bangwa figure attributed to the master carver Ateu Atsa and an intricately carved tusk from the Babanki-Tungo area – both from the Cameroon grasslands.
The exhibition will include approximately twenty-five remarkable grasslands objects from public and private collections ranging in size from architectural elements to small pipes.
Organized by type – figures, masks, pipes, tusks, and calabashes – instead of being grouped according to their traditional artistic and stylistic centers of Bamun, Bamileke, and the NorthWesternProvinces, the exhibition takes a focused look at artistic influences resulting from regional interaction and trade.
Based on those connections, the exhibition also will question the attributions of some of the selected objects and reattribute others.
Images of Power is organized by Neuberger Museum Consultant for African Art Marie-Thérèse Brincard.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with an essay written by Dr. Christraud Geary, Senior Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and an eminent scholar on the art of the Cameroon grasslands.
