Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa Now On View
Cleveland Museum of Art organizes the most comprehensive exhibition of masks, figures, and decorative arts by Senufo artists presented in the United States in the last 50 years.
CLEVELAND (February 2015) – The Cleveland Museum of Art presents Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa, a rare selection of one of the most popular and studied forms of African art from three countries in West Africa: Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso. Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa is the first presentation of Senufo art in the United States in the last 50 years and includes more than 160 works borrowed from nearly 60 public and private collections in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, many of which have never before been publically displayed. Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa is on view to May 31, 2015 in the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall. Organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa will subsequently travel to the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France.
Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa offers an expanded view of the region’s dynamic arts and questions the application since the late 1880s of the term Senufo to peoples, languages, places, and objects. Through this selection of masks, figures and decorative arts in diverse styles and mediums, the exhibition introduces visitors to the poro and sandogo societies, the primary settings for the production and use of works of art in the Senufo-speaking region of northern Côte d’Ivoire. Drawing on recent research in Mali and Burkina Faso, the exhibition also includes sculptures not usually attributed to Senufo-speaking artists or patrons, thus shattering the boundaries of the arts typically identified as Senufo.
“Original scholarship has always been a defining aspect of the work of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and this important exhibition offers a new approach to the understanding, and presentation of African art” said William M. Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “While emphasizing the unique nature of every work of art, Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa demonstrates there are often common formal and functional threads as culture groups influence each other’s arts.”
Highlights in the exhibition include a male and female figure pair from a private collection. Celebrating ideal beauty and gender complementarity, the pair would have been prominently used by a poro initiation association that prepares its members for leadership roles. Another highlight includes a mother-and-child figure from the Cleveland Museum of Art's permanent collection. In some areas, maternity figures are related to the Tyekpa association, the female counterpart of male poro associations, and are carried on Tyekpa members’ heads during funerary ceremonies. Elsewhere, such sculptures function as stationary display figures for poro. A third highlight in this exhibition is a composite anthropomorphic figure. In this composite piece, a carved wooden figure hidden under a cloth costume, imitates a fiber mask with a triangular head covering. Like the masquerader, the kafigelejo figure carries a club or a whip used as an otherworldly policing instrument.
"Aside from showing a large number of stunning objects that demonstrate the striking diversity within the corpus labeled as Senufo," stated Constantine Petridis, curator of African art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, "the exhibition also includes a variety of works in styles that present-day art scholars, connoisseurs and collectors typically do not attribute to Senufo-speaking artists, patrons or audiences." “In doing so,” Petridis continues, "the exhibition illustrates the fluidity and fuzziness of cultural and ethnic borders while also revealing the constraints of labels and simple attributions."
Also included in the exhibition are a handful of historical photographs and books as well as 14 gelatin silver prints made by French photographer Agnès Pataux in Burkina Faso and Mali in 2006–8.
To complement Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa, the Cleveland Museum of Art has developed its first special exhibition mobile application, “CMA Senufo.” Immediately available on “CMA Senufo” is an exhibition preview video with the museum’s curator of African art, Constantine Petridis, and information for planning a museum visit. When a visitor arrives to the museum to tour Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa, and joins the museum’s “Art Lens” wifi, the app will unlock unique and exclusive content on a selection of artworks from the CMA’s own collection, and on loan from other museums and private collections. Through exhibition labels, the visitor will be able to identify objects with contextual, interpretive content, and through the presentation of insightful commentary, high-resolution imagery and video, “CMA Senufo” encourages a closer look at some of the exhibition’s individual objects and the story behind Senufo-speaking artists and patrons. The app also provides an interactive list of related events, gallery tours and information about the Cleveland Museum of Art including: parking, dining, membership opportunities and more. The app is free and now available for iPhones through the Apple iTunes App Store.
Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa is accompanied by a 272-page full-color book titled Senufo Unbound. Authored by Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi, assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, who received her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. Gagliardi conducted more than 20 months of fieldwork among Senufo communities in Burkina Faso between 2004 and 2012 and has held prestigious fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, D.C., and from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Additional authors: William Griswold (Director’s Foreword), Constantine Petridis (Preface), and Tiona Ferdinand Ouattara (Afterword).
Hardcover, 272 pages, 281 illustrations. The catalogue is available for purchase in the Cleveland Museum of Art store.
Tickets Adult tickets for Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa are $8; Seniors: $6; Students (with valid ID): $6; CMA members: Free; Member guests: $4. Free admission for children. Children 14 and under require adult supervision while inside the exhibition. For tickets and information, please visit clevelandart.org/senufo
About the Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes almost 45,000 objects and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. The museum is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, performing arts and art education and recently completed an ambitious, multi-phase renovation and expansion project across its campus. One of the top comprehensive art museums in the nation and free of charge to all, the Cleveland Museum of Art is located in the dynamic University Circle neighborhood.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is supported by a broad range of individuals, foundations and businesses in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. The museum is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. Additional support comes from the Ohio Arts Council, which helps fund the museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. In 2014, the museum was awarded a top four-star rating by Charity Navigator, the nation’s most-utilized independent evaluator of charities and nonprofits. For more information about the museum, its holdings, programs and events, call 888-CMA-0033 or visit www.ClevelandArt.org