Dani's Day Ten Refelctions

June 18th, 2016

Research

10am - 12pm

While conducting research, I stumbled upon an African art museum in Tenafly, NJ that is maintained by the Society of African Missions. Apparently, it is one of five museums around the world that a Roman Catholic international missionary organization has built to respect and preserve the cultures of the people they serve. The African Art Museum in New Jersey was established in 1980 and has a permanent collection of African art which is exhibited on a rotating basis. The museum also serves as a center for research related to sub-Saharan sculpture and painting, costumes, textiles and decorative arts, religion and folklore.

On their site, they describe the connection between African art and society. In short, they make the claim that because African art had functional and aesthetic purposes, it is impossible to understand the culture without understanding the art. The organization seems to stress that the arts were deeply woven into social life and artists/craftsmen worked within the parameters that had been defined by their societies.

I find the historical and current motivations of missionaries very disturbing. However, it was interesting to read about how this organization functions, especially in terms of historical African art. Although I disagree with missions as a concept and in practice, the way this organization viewed the connection between art and social life was beneficial for me in how I've been making sense of what we've been observing in the PMA and the Penn Museum. I think the PMA failed to give the audience the opportunity to look at the art in the way that it should be looked at by focusing mostly on form and craft, not involving actual human beings in their instructive videos, and giving the audience too much room to imagine what the artifacts meant to the people who created them. As a whole, I think the experience would have been more meaningful and evocative if the connection between the artifacts and the lived experiences was more clear. Since these artifacts were utilitarian in the societies to which they belonged, I don't think displaying them in a way that encourages the audience to just look and maybe look again, adequately represents the works. It's not just aesthetic and that's okay.

I'd be interested in checking out this Art Museum.

Lunch

12pm-1pm

Notes on the Main Building (aka "The Big House")

1pm - 2:30pm

While looking through the East Asian section of the museum, I kept thinking about the connection between representation and history. I think the reason many institutions, like the PMA often fail to adequately represent African art is because African history has been misrepresented. The East Asian section was full of detail. I think this could also be due to the tension between oral and written history. In museums and other institutions, cultures that have written histories are often prioritized because they most closely resemble the ways we choose to represent European cultures and understand the world. By prioritizing these cultures, we erase and minimize the contributions that other cultures have made to the world in terms of art, science, etc. I think it's fair to say that you can't represent the art of different cultures in the same way, but the same amount of effort should be made to ensure that the art of each culture is represented in the right way.That requires a lot of research and planning, and even more when the museum isn't familiar with representing art from some cultures. Due to the historical and violent processes that have discounted or completely erased the cultures of mostly non-white people, it is valid to have supplementary materials and information about their cultural objects that you choose to represent in museums. Not providing the cultural context enables
museums to participate in their erasure. The PMA is no exception. I don't think the PMA understood/understands how much of a role they play in allowing people to construct their views of different peoples and cultures through art. It's a huge responsibility that should be taken more seriously than I feel it was in the Creative Africa exhibition.

In the interpretation team's presentation, they stressed the importance of pushing the museum to try something different. In my opinion, the museum will continue to make the same mistakes if they don't start asking different questions. If you want to attract a more diverse audience or diversify your permanent collection, you have to ask a diverse set of questions. As I walked through  the East Asian galleries, I saw many people there who were of Asian descent. I kept thinking about the experiences they were having in the galleries? What did the art mean to them? What did it mean to people who weren't of Asian-descent? What experiences were they having?

What experiences are people of African descent having in Creative Africa or in the museum as a whole where art related to their histories and cultures is rarely represented? What does this mean to them? What does it mean to people who aren't of African descent? How is this informing the ways people view art from these cultures?

Detailed description that connected the art to the culture in the Mexican Modernism Exhibition:

Detailed descriptions that connected the art to the culture/function in the East Asian section: 

Supplementary Materials:

Educational/Instructive video with a human being in it:

It looks like Vlisco wasn't the only mistake that the museum has made of this caliber. Another contemporary Dutch artists is featured in the East Asian section. 

The transition from historical to contemporary Asian art was done seamlessly and beautifully for the most part. The contemporary and historical are are both part of the permanent collection.

"Apparent artlessness"

Prompts and supplementary materials in the Middle Ages section

Observing the rest of Creative Africa

2:30pm - 3:30pm

While listening/observing in Vlisco, I hear a white women explain the exhibition to her grandchildren.

"The exhibit is promoting the women's businesses in Africa".

Another women pointed out familiar symbols in the prints to her toddler.


In Vlisco, I spoke to two Black women about whether or not they noticed that most of the works were made by Dutch designers.

"On the one hand, I'm grateful to see anything Africa-related in the museum, and I wonder why there isn't a permanent collection of African art."

In Look Again, a young white couple respond with faces of disapproval when they notice the hanging figures.

Last of the Look Again Observation Maps

3:30pm - 4:30pm

We filled in the rest of our maps.



Works Cited:

http://smafathers.org/museum/resources-ebooks/the-african-art/