Baule: African Art, Western Eyes
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997. Softbound. Green & color illus. wraps. 312 pp. Profusely illustrated in color; weighs 4 lbs. VG- (Page edges have tanned lightly; otherwise book is clean.). Item #36506
ISBN: 0894670786
Accompanied a traveling exhibition of pieces from the Baule ethnic group of the Ivory Coast. From the author's introduction: "My Baule friends and neighbors do not recognize a category of object that corresponds to 'art.' and do not identify an 'art experience.' They do appreciate and discuss the aesthetic qualities that distinguish certain things from ordinary objects -- but they discuss them by their own system of attributes. 'Art' cannot be described from a Baule point of view at all, simply because their view does not include 'art' in the Western sense of the word. As I questioned people about their objects, they told me things that at first seemed irrelevant to the research. Gradually I realized they were telling me what they felt I had to know to see their objects correctly. Eventually I was forced to recognize that their understanding and appreciations of these objects were the opposite of those I had learned from a Western museum culture; theirs focused on the spiritual presence associated with the object, and were only marginally concerned with the physical form of the object, while mine placed high value on the tangible, man-made art object and involved the suspicion that the metaphysical dimension was not available -- even vicariously. I do not feel that either approach is wrong, but neither is complete, and the tension between them has become one of the subjects of this book." (p. 17).
A super catalogue, jam-packed with illustrations and text.
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