Considering the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston's usual collection of African and Oceanic art -- a mere two rooms next to the special exhibition galleries on the first floor -- the appearance of "Object, Image, Collector: African and Oceanic Art in Focus" is a welcome celebration of two sectors not often highlighted at the museum. But, despite the exhibit's inclusion of several exquisite objects and its intriguing central theme, it doesn't pull the pieces together the way it should and, if anything, seems an overly cautious step toward a more thorough exploration of African and Oceanic art.
The exhibit, located near the Buddhist Temple Room in the Japanese art galleries, features works from 20 different private collections and is arranged roughly chronology. Wall text clues the visitor in to the unifying theme of the show -- one that smartly entwines the evolution of photography from documentary tool to viable art form with the evolution of African and Oceanic objects from practical items to aesthetic curiosities.
Curators Christraud M. Geary and Karen E. Haas explain the way in which the foreign objects provided formal subjects for modern photographers, while European and American photographic images in turn elevated African and Oceanic figures to the level of, say, Greek and Roman statues. The comparison is an intriguing symbiosis, but it doesn't translate as spectacularly as the visitor might hope throughout the exhibit.
"Object, Image, Collector" hits its highest points when photographs and art objects are paired. Images by American photographers Man Ray, Walker Evans and Charles Sheeler hang near figures that inspired them. Sheeler's arrangement of "Six West African Figures" (1917-19) echoes a similar collection of African pieces positioned below it, although they are not the exact objects shown in the photo. Ray's striking photograph used for the cover of a 1926 Paris exhibition brochure is accompanied by a piece from the Island of Nias that seems to have been pulled right from the page. In these pairings, questions of perspective and appropriation begin to open up.
Visitors, with or without realizing it, also contribute to the amalgamation of perspectives on African and Oceanic art. A woman leaned in to take a photograph of a male figure from Central Flores, Indonesia, that was described as having "an interesting photographic history," from the camera of a Dutch colonial administrator to publication in a German survey of Indonesian art; she adds to the history of the piece.
After all, the exhibition claims to be all about looking. In the juxtaposition of objects and images, of modernist paintings (Fernand Léger's "La création du monde," 1922, is thrown in) and masks, the visitor is encouraged to examine the ways in which European and American perspectives of African and Oceanic art have shifted over time, and the ways in which African objects have informed modernist style.
The path of African and Oceanic art objects is a complex one -- sifting through the hands of various collectors, artists and institutions. At times, though, it seems as if "Object, Image, Collector" tries to tackle too much, and then shies away.
The show attempts to give an overview of the changing treatment of African and Oceanic objects, from the ways that they were documented to their appearance in exhibitions. By the time the exhibit approaches the '50s and '60s, visitors have lost the photography-object interaction and are left sifting through a variety of side topics. Descriptions become strictly visual for most pieces, with little instruction on how to read the objects in the context of the evolving Euro-American perspective.
A few self-aware contemporary works -- a bold self-portrait piece by American Willie Cole using domestic iron marks as a reference to the branding of African slaves and fragmented collages by Romare Bearden asserting Harlem heritage -- are memorable, but make statements that don't mesh neatly with the rest of the show.
Though the gallery text points out that Oceanic works are often mistakenly assumed to fall within African art, the exhibit simply perpetuates that confusion by combining the two. Even within the selection of African art alone, the same attention that is given to differentiating French and Spanish paintings is not applied to separating the styles of figures from Mali and Nigeria. "Object, Image, Collector" tries to pack in too much, without unpacking the complex discussion to be had regarding each work.
While the show is a promising move for the museum in strengthening its display of African and Oceanic art, it could use some fine-tuning. A serious study of the works that make up such a small sector of the building is needed for visitors to appreciate their complex histories, and perhaps "Object, Image, Collector" will act as a vital steppingstone.
