Washington, DC — 'Spectacular display - the art of Nkanu initiation rituals is the new exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington DC, December 16-March 3
This is a neat, well-proportioned show, not too many artefacts, and located around a single theme - male initiation as practised by the Nkanu people, who live on the borders of Angola and the DR Congo.
The exhibition area, on the lower level of the the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C., is spacious. The carvings are mounted on olive green walls in a setting somewhat reminiscent of an open air African compound, an idea further reinforced by the projection onto a huge wall of tropical rain forest, evoking - just a little - their original setting.
The carvings may partly be seen as art objects on a gallery wall and partly as ethnological finds, an ambivalence reflected in the title of this show.
The two dozen or so carvings and photos come from the massive collection in the Tervuren museum in Belgium, with the addition of other pieces recently borrowed from a group of Belgian Jesuit Fathers who had missions in this part of Central Africa.
Many of the carvings are, in African terms, very old but well-preserved - some from the first years of the 20th century, most from between the 1920s and '40s.
They were originally made for an initiation school (just one was held during each chiefs term of office) and should, according to tradition, have been burned after being displayed at a local crossroads or being paraded in dance. Instead they were collected by outsiders. So for this show they have already been through a number of selection processes - by the religious fathers who saved them, not just from the fires but also from termites; by the curators at Tervuren; and finally, by this exhibitions curators.
The pieces are finely carved and many viewers will find that they have great 'psychological' presence.
The initiation ceremonies they were made for follow a similar pattern over much of inland Angola, Western Zambia and the Congo - the 'Mukande initiation zone. But what seems novel in the pieces selected here are the direct references to the colonial experience, shown in carvings of colonial officers and local soldiers.
Europeans have been portrayed in artefacts both for barter and for African use since the Portuguese began their West African trading forays in the 15th century. Bearded Portuguese heads were a regular motif, just as African heads were. But by the 20th century, representation had changed. In the Belgian Congo, where colonialism was a particularly brutal experience, the 'colonie Belge with its uniformed officers and cruel underlings became a popular theme for painters in the years before independence.
The carvings were being made when the appearance of the colonial officer certainly meant forced labour and taxes. At this time, many communities in the Congo saw the colonialists as representing a massive witchcraft attack and geared all their cultural and social resources to defence. Yet in these artefacts, the colonial presence seems, to a foreign viewer, to be ambiguously cast.
Here one set of panels portrays the colonial officer, flanked by two Congolese soldiers and enmeshed in the densely symbolic iconography. One of the troops looks as though he may just have been circumcised; or perhaps the phallic display is sign of potency. Is he a new initiate, standing on both sides of the colonial fence? In another set of panels we have a colonial officer apparently signifying acceptance in the local style, by clapping, beside a woman giving birth; is he accepting paternity and responsibility within the community? Is the work a statement that he should accept paternity? A statement intended to persuade him to accept paternity? Or merely, a reference to a local incident?
The carving of a nun is similarly ambiguous - is her meek pose a reflection of her piety? Or, since similar poses elswhere indicate pregnancy, is this a social comment on sexual denial and opposition to Nkanu arts? What was the function of the carving, with its certain articulation, in the ceremonies?
Mounting an exhibition like this requires a clear head, since the depiction of Africans is such a zone of contention. It matters how the artefacts are displayed - whether in the context of anthropology or art.
It is significant that the exhibiting is being done outside the Congo, that the articles should properly have gone up in flames but have instead ended up here. Also part of the picture must be the motives of the Belgian Fathers. Elsewhere missionaries were burning such carvings as power objects and fetishes made for sorcery. But perhaps this was business? By this time there was already a trade in carvings in the region - was this a case of willing buyer, willing seller?
This kind of debate is well known to curators and anthropologists, and to some artists, too. But, in addition, this museum is in a city whose population is 65% African-American and with a growing number of recent African migrants. The curators, careful of their educational function, have set up an accompanying photo exhibition of local ceremonies to show parallels between initiation rites in Central Africa 80 or so years ago and the rites of passage organised by local church groups for their local youth in todays Washington, D.C.
In this, and in the selection and presentation of the Nkanu artefacts, viewers may find a lot more to consider. At the turn of the century, the British Museum, or the Tervuren museum, and no doubt US museums, had their own subtexts - subtle messages about the African exhibits in their cabinets - all part of the ideology buttressing imperialism. But museums have continued, up to the present day, to present their particular view, contriving an imagined community, even when curators believed they were making value-free displays.
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This exhibition seeks to be active in the construction of identity among African-Americans in Washington, D.C. In so doing, it may be emphasising the anthropology and playing down the formal, 'artistic' elements of the work, and its relevancies to a wider constituency than the African and African-American community.
Yet given the museum/gallery setting, it is unlikely that many visitors to this exhibition (including Africans) will be able to see these works outside the usual way of experiencing 'Western art'. Inevitably they may be viewed, here in Washington, not as initiation objects, appearing suddenly from an unfamiliar past and the mysteries of a long-gone boys rite, but as art objects. They carry the history of their origin, but will also be seen through the prism of our received views and the long presence of African forms within the Western art tradition.
To some viewers an education in the carvings' original meanings, in their dense symbolism, may add to their appreciation, but this access may be limited. The form and the colour of the artefacts, the way in which the carver solved problems and the designs themselves, may strike the deepest chords, and provoke the aesthetic 'jolt' from which most satisfaction may be gained from viewing this work.
'Spectacular display - the art of Nkanu initiation rituals is at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., December 16 - March 3,2002.
