Five essays on MASP – Arts from Africa
For the opening of the Pietro Maria Bardi Building, MASP presents five exhibitions about its collection and history. On this floor, Arts from Africa looks at the history of exhibitions and the museum’s collection dedicated to so-called traditional African art, in addition to contemporary works related to the theme.
The expression “traditional African art” refers to the artistic production of different populations on the continent throughout history, rooted in cultural or religious practices that manifest in architecture and in sculptures, masks, textiles, paintings, ceremonial objects, jewelry, and ceramics.
Since 1953, MASP has held several exhibitions on the subject. The museum’s African art collection was formed mainly through two major donations: the one from Bank Boston (1998) and the one from the Robilotta collection (2012), as well as other punctual additions, covering pieces ranging from Ancient Egypt to contemporary artists.
The collection on display, produced in the twentieth century, comprises 17 different cultures, reflecting just a fraction of the nearly 500 already existent societies on the continent. Most of the pieces come from West Africa, with a predominance of cultures from the Yoruba language family, as well as some Bantu examples.
The exhibition prioritizes pieces made of wood, with figures structured in geometric shapes and often carved into a single piece. Related to the body or associated with it in everyday objects, dolls, musical instruments, and masks, these works were made to honor ancestors, maintain balance between opposing forces of nature and society, or exalt experiences of abundance and vitality. Therefore, when exhibited in the museum, they are decontextualized, devoid of the music, the dance, the people and, in short, the celebration—of playful or funeral nature—that accompanied them.
The exhibition design refers to two essential materials for Africa’s technological development: earth, present in ancient architecture, and iron, which has been molten on the continent since at least 500 BC.
Two contemporary artists have produced new works in dialogue with this collection, offering critical counterpoints to it. biarritzzz made three videos showing fragments of masks from the collection, while Cipriano produced paintings that superimpose chants from Afro-Brazilian religions to generate abstract forms, thus demonstrating how the African cultural heritage in Brazil is alive and keeps reinventing itself.
Five Essays on MASP: Arts from Africa is curated by Amanda Carneiro, curator, and Leandro Muniz, assistant curator, MASP.
The show is part of the set Five Essays on MASP, exhibitions that inaugurate the Pietro Maria Bardi Building and occupy other four of its floors: Histories of MASP (6th floor), Renoir (5th floor), Geometries (4th floor), and Isaac Julien: Lina Bo Bardi – A Wonderful Entanglement (2nd floor).
THE COLLECTION
The majority of MASP’s collection of African art consists of twentieth-century statues and masks, which were incorporated into the museum during the first decades of its existence. Since 1953, six years after its foundation, the museum has held several exhibitions on this theme, such as Arte Negra (1953), Arte Tradicional da Costa do Marfim (1973), Da senzala ao sobrado (1978), Arte contemporânea do Senegal (1981), Cultura Nigeriana (1987), África Negra (1988) and Do coração da África - Arte Yorubá (2014).
Two major gifts were fundamental to the formation of this collection: from Bank Boston in 1998 and from the Robilotta Collection in 2012. In order to reflect on the history of this collection and the exhibitions of African art at MASP, a series of documents will be presented in a showcase that documents this evolution.
Arts from Africa, Renoir, Geometries, MASP Histories and Isaac Julien: Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement are part of Five essays on MASP, a series of exhibitions based on the museum's collection and history to inaugurate the new Pietro Maria Bardi Building.