Result of the research : 'profane'
Sarah Lagrevol
Ecole du Louvre
Spécialité Arts de l'Afrique
INTRODUCTION
L'Ethiopie, vaste pays mentionné dès le Ier siècle dans le récit grec Le périple de la Mer Erythrée, suscite un engouement particulier de la part des Européens. Cette Ethiopie rêvée continue au Moyen Age avec le mythe du royaume du Prêtre jean.
Depuis la conversion du pays au IVe siècle de notre ère, le monde chrétien est omniprésent et accompagne les fidèles dans leur vie quotidienne. Le symbole de la croix, marque distinctive des dévots et image de rédemption, est présent sur tous types de supports (peinture, sculpture, décor architectural, objet façonné…) et de nombreuses interprétations lui sont attachées. Ces croix participent aussi par la bénédiction et les pratiques d'exorcisme à protéger les fidèles et à les soigner spirituellement. Les différents types de médecines pratiquées donnent également lieu à la production de rouleaux aux vertus " magiques " qui chassent ou apaisent les esprits habitant le patient.
De par l'étude de la
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African traditional masks
There are an enormous variety of masks used in Africa. In West Africa, masks are used in masquerades that form part of religious ceremonies enacted to contact with spirits and ancestors.
The Yoruba, Igbo and Edo cultures, including Egungun Masquerades and Northern Edo Masquerades. The masks are usually carved with an extraordinary skill and variety by artists who will usually have received their training as an apprentice to a master carver - frequently it is a tradition that has been passed down within a family through many generations. Such an artist holds a respected position in tribal society because of the work that he/she creates, embodying not only complex craft techniques but also spiritual/social and symbolic knowledge. African masks are also used in the Mas or Masquerade of the Caribbean Carnival.
African masks are made from different materials: wood, bronze, brass, copper, ivory, terra cotta and glazed pottery, raffia and textiles. Some African masks are colourful. Many African masks represent animals. Some African tribes believe that the animal masks can help them communicate with the spirits who live in forests or open savannas. People of Burkina Faso known as the Bwa and Nuna call to the spirit to stop destruction. The Dogon of Mali have complex religions that also have animal masks. Their beliefs are in three main cults - the Awa, cult of the dead, Bini, cult of communication with spirits and Lebe, cult of earth and nature. These three main cults nevertheless use seventy-eight different types of masks. Most of the ceremonies of the Dogon culture are secret, although the antelope dance is shown to non-Dogons. The antelope masks are rough rectangular boxes with several horns coming out of the top. The Dogons are expert agriculturists and the antelope symbolizes a hard working farmer.
Another culture that has a very rich agricultural tradition is the
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Africa under colonial rule, 1880-1935
Research Director
Professor A. A. Boahen (Ghana)
In February 1976, in Nigeria, a man was arrested at a police checkpoint between Ibadan and Lagos. He was carrying two bags full of bronze sculptures and wood on suspicion of having stolen it affirmât well as the owner. Upon inquiry, the man telling the truth. Recently converted to Islam, he lived and worked in Ibadan at a community center. The effigies of deities carved Yoruba he was carrying had been brought in Ibadan, like many others, by migrant workers to satisfy the spiritual aspirations of these artisans, shopkeepers, civil servants and other migrant workers in their temporary residence. But the leader of the community, having converted to Islam, began in turn to convert their neighbors. Converted in his turn, the suspect heard himself served as symbols of their ancient faith were to disappear to allow the community center to become a dwelling worthy of the spiritual presence of Allah. Unable to consider destroying these objects, he resolved to return to his village, place of origin, where they have since been resettled.
This incident is a perfect example of the evolution of cultural forms and their concrete manifestation and at the same time, the survival or the renewal of cultural values from specific forms of domination, whether of a religious or more clearly social. What remained true in 1976 was even more common during this period particularly dramatic external domination of Africa, which saw the submission of an entire people, its social
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, and has a much smaller second location in Upper Manhattan, at "The Cloisters," which features medieval art.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. It opened on February 20, 1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
As of 2007, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet.
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african art / art africain / primitive art / art primitif / arts
premiers / art gallery / art tribal / tribal art / l'oeil et la main /
galerie d'art premier / Agalom / Armand Auxiètre /
www.african-paris.com / www.agalom.com
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David Norden
http://users.telenet.be/african-shop/kerchache.htm
In a crucial moment for the world of Tribal Arts, Ana &Antonio Casanovas from Arte y Ritual and Alain Bovis Gallery present two consecutive exhibitions in Paris with a selection of masterworks from the Kerchache collection:
1.”HOMMAGE” June 16-July 22 2006
2. “NIGERIA” September 13th –October 20th 2006
“HOMAGE TO JACQUES KERCHACHE”
WHY?
The Quai Branly
We want to pay an HOMAGE to Jacques Kerchache and , in his name, give support to an important historical event : the opening of the Quai Branly,one of the most important museums in the world dedicated entirely to “les Arts Premiers”. Jacques was first appointed to asses the selection of art works for the “Pavillion des Sessions” in the Louvre Museum which was conceived as an antennae of the Quai Branly.He had a crucial role in the creation of this innovative museum and was an important member of the Acquisition Committee.
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P R E F A C E
In one of the chaos of rocks the most amazing of Africa, has a population of farmer-warriors who was one of the last of the French domain to lose its independence.
For most whites in West Africa, the Dogon are dangerous men, if not the most backward of the Federation. Ilspassent to practice human sacrifice and even to defend themselves better against all the outside influences that they live a difficult country. Some writers have told their small fears when supposedly daring excursions. From these legends and the pretext of revolts often due to misunderstandings, it has sometimes taken in exile of entire villages.
In short, the Dogon represent one of the finest examples of primitive savage and this opinion is shared by some black Muslims who, intellectually, are not better equipped than whites to appreciate those of their fellow faithful to ancestral traditions. Only officials who have assumed the heavy task of administering these men have learned to love them.
The author of this book and its many teammates attend the Dogon past fifteen years. They published the work of these men who are now the people's best-known French Sudan: The Souls of the Dogon (G. Dieterlen, 1941), The Currency (S. OF GANAY 1941), Masks (M. Griaule, 1938) have brought to scholarly evidence that blacks lived on complex ideas, but ordered, on systems of institutions and rituals where nothing is left to chance or whim. This work, already ten years ago, drew
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african art / art africain / primitive art / art primitif / arts
premiers / art gallery / art tribal / tribal art / l'oeil et la main /
galerie d'art premier / Agalom / Armand Auxiètre /
www.african-paris.com / www.agalom.com
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Germaine
Dieterlen (1903-1999) was a French anthropologist.
She was a student of Marcel Mauss and wrote on a large range of ethnographictopics and made pioneering contributions to the study of myths, initiations,
techniques (particularly "descriptive ethnography"),
graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social
structure. She is most noted for her work among the Dogon and the Bambaraof Mali, having
lived with them for over twenty years, often in collaboration with noted French
anthropologist Marcel Griaule (1898-1956). Themes
Some of the main themes in her work concentrate
on the notions of sacred kingship, the position of the first born, relationships between
maternal uncles and nephews, division
of labor, marriage,
and the status of the rainmaker in Dogon society. Because each episode of the
rite is enacted only once every sixty years, Dieterlen's documentation of the sigui cycle allowed the Dogon
themselves to see and interpret the entire sequence of rites which they had
heretofore only observed in part. Researches
Dieterlen began her ethnographic research in Bandiagara,
Mali in 1941. Perhaps most controversially, Dieterlen was criticized by her
peers for her publications with Griaule on Dogon astronomy,
which professed an ancient knowledge of the existence of a dwarf white star,Sirius Balso called the Dog
Star, invisible to the naked eye. This ancient
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