One of the great benefits of speaking across academic disciplines is the ability to approach objects and topics from multiple directions, using diverse methodologies and asking a range of questions. As scholars, when we isolate too long within our disciplinary boundaries, we can easily become blind to the assumptions and generalizations that underly our research findings. Speaking across fields reminds us of the historical prejudices, misconceptions,
and long-forgotten foundational frameworks we must strive to root out.
In this case, AARON PANOFSKY, director of and professor in the UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics, as well as a professor in public policy and sociology, brings fresh eyes to questions of museum collections and definitions of Art. Panofsky’s own work looks at the ways history shapes and, sometimes, limits our thinking. While we make take for granted that each work on view in this gallery can be defined as “Art” (we are, after all, in an art museum), Panofsky questions the processes that have led to this moment, calling our attention to the many actors, events, and movements that shape our understanding of objects over time.

HAIR PIN; X67.728
Of Hairpins and Handcraft
This beautiful ivory hairpin originated in the Congo in West Africa. May French Sheldon could have acquired it during her remarkable journey in 1891 when, scandalously unaccompanied by white men but aided by nearly 200 Black slaves and porters, she crossed much of central Africa and rounded Lake Chala (in present day Tanzania). Perhaps this elegant hairpin, which looks like it could have been made in Paris, Philadelphia, or Calcutta, was purchased to be a talking piece: “Wherever did you get that lovely hairpin, Mrs. Sheldon?” With that she might launch into a lengthy disquisition on her adventures, beginning with a refreshing, “enlightened” thesis for her milieu: Africans are neither savage, deficient, benighted, nor degraded—such views are naught but Euro-American biases and prejudices. As her interlocutor turns the hairpin gently in her hands, Sheldon might continue with a deftly curated selection of details based on her observations of African gender relations, patterns of marriage and family, food and drink, arts and crafts, even the reserved physical comportment and emotional habits of those she met. The simple beauty of the hairpin may have helped listeners to identify with its creators. And Sheldon’s beguiling descriptions may have lent authority as she advocated for a seemingly generous and “common-sense” rationale for colonization. But would she have mentioned that her journey was partly sponsored by King Leopold II of Belgium who laid claim to the Congo and was vastly enriched by what he could extract from the land and people? Would listeners have wondered how many ivory carvers had their hands chopped off by the brutal administrators of his rubber plantations?

MASK; X65.10850
Art Unmasked
What makes something “Art” instead of “craft” or someone an “Artist” rather than an “artisan”? Preconceptions and hangups of “Western” audiences have long been a barrier to their definitions and appreciation of African art. In the past, some Western critics have scoffed that the very notion of “Art” doesn’t apply to African creations. These objects are functional—symbolizing royalty, aiding ritual, manipulating the spirit world, cementing alliances. Craftsmanship or aesthetics are said to not be the point. For these misguided critics, art’s “artness” comes from the institutions and traditions that recognize beauty for its own sake—and Africans, they assumed, lacked this ethos. So, did this beautiful Igbo mask become art when it was hung in the home of art patron Baroness Catherine d’Erlanger? Or when it entered the collection of the Fowler Museum? When you admired it here, without really comprehending its original function? Should we all be annoyed by a definition of art that seems to require that objects be removed from their original contexts in order to qualify for that label? Here’s another way to think about it: it’s not obvious that this mask was created to be worn—it is heavy and shallow and would fit a face awkwardly at best. So, maybe this isn’t a mask, but a mask-like representation of a mask. Wouldn’t it then be an artwork about masks? Would those critics now think of the maker as an Artist?

TABLE; X63.412
A Break with Expectations
Isn’t it weird the way your eye is instantly drawn to the broken base of this table? Even more than the wide-eyed faces looking out around the perimeter, the break is the most noticeable feature, and it sets your mind wondering. Did it happen before the Cameroonian King Ibrahim Njoya gifted the table to the American tourist Mary Hastings Bradley in 1931 as a gesture of goodwill? Or did it occur sometime on her long journey back home to Chicago? Maybe it was rammed by an errant vacuum cleaner in her house. Oops! Could it have slipped from someone’s grip when it was being moved in museum storage? (Our curators assure me the break didn’t happen on their watch.) While the damage encourages our imagination about the table’s past, how does it affect our understanding of the work as art? Maybe we’re only spinning these stories because Western audiences are already predisposed to see African art as functional—we imagine it being used rather than revered and protected. In many European artworks, breaks connote age, and age implies heritage, rarity, and value. The Venus de Milo is elevated by its missing arms; it would be arguably less beautiful, certainly less interesting, if complete. Does the break in this table make you think it wasn’t cared for or valued? Does the table’s African origin make you read its broken base as more of a defect or an asset?