Exhibition: “West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song” at the British Library.

An exhibition of literature and music – from the great African empires of the Middle Ages to the cultural dynamism of West Africa today

Fascinating stories from the region’s 17 nations show how West Africans have harnessed the power of words to build societies, drive political movements, sustain religious belief and fight injustice.

Beautiful manuscripts, historic film and sound recordings, books, photographs, and woven and printed textiles offer a unique insight into a profound and engaging literary culture with centuries-old written heritage existing alongside ancient oral traditions.

Hear the myth of the founding of ancient Mali in recorded performance. See the influence of religion through colourful fabric and the saddlebag Qur’an. Celebrate writers and artists including Africa’s first Nobel prize winner, Wole Soyinka, and internationally acclaimed musician and human rights activist Fela Kuti.

- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/events/west-africa-word-symbol-song#sthash.SVnDNyAJ.dpuf

Exhibition:- “Seeing Red: World Textiles” in Bloomington, Indiana

Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center, Bloomington, Indiana August 28 to September 26, 2015

“This September 2015 Lotus Arts and Education Foundation in conjunction with Ivy Tech John Waldron Gallery will present an exhibition of rare and unusual textiles featuring the color red. “Seeing Red: World Textiles” features over forty hand woven and constructed textiles dating from Egyptian to modern times. Seven Indiana collectors -- Suzanne Halvorson, Joan Hart, William Itter, Barbara Livesey, Harold Mailand, and George Malacinski, met this past February to review and select textiles from their collections composed of every shade of red. All of the textiles revealed that red can be a dominant color that shapes and defines a textile’s ingenious construction and cultural prominence. Not only is red a color of great optical range, it is a color of many personal, emotional, and theoretical meanings. This exhibit ventures to explore the diversity of red and its identity as a beautiful color. This exhibit opens Friday, August 28th, and concludes Saturday, September 26th, the weekend of Lotus World Music and Arts Festival (see: lotusfest.org).”

Click on the photos to enlarge. All photos © William Itter.

Please don’t share without permission.

New Exhibition: “African Textiles and Adornment: Selections from the Marcel and Zaira Mis Collection” at LACMA

“

Brilliant color, bold patterns, and intriguing symbols characterize the dress of many societies throughout the African continent. Not only are garments visually compelling, but they are also laden with emblems of power that signify the wealth, status, prestige, or even divinity of the bearer. The body’s seat of intelligence, spirit, and identity is also established by crowning the head with spectacular structures fashioned out of feathers or beads that soar above or surround the head, increasing or expanding a subject’s stature.

Featuring over 35 dynamic textiles and commanding headdresses, this exhibition presents the profound visual impact of African textiles. Fashioned in a variety of techniques and enhanced with a broad range of natural materials, these extraordinary garments and headpieces sculpt the body into iconic form and serve as aesthetic surrogates for power and esteem.”

April 5, 2015–October 12, 2015

At: LACMA

A book on this collection was published by 5Continents a few years ago.

Exhibition: “Add to, Take Away: Artistry and Innovation in African Textiles” at Dallas Museum of Art

November 8, 2014 to December 6, 2015

““Add to” and “take away” refer to basic techniques African textile artists use to decorate cloth. “Add to” techniques include embroidery and appliqué. “Take away” refers to the removal of threads from cloth to create intricate patterns. Decorated cloth is often a powerful expressive medium in African life, a kind of visual language that can be read by those familiar with it. This installation of cloths drawn primarily from the DMA’s collection explores these techniques as they have been—and still are—practiced in Mali, Republic of Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. “Add to” and “take away” refer to basic techniques African textile artists use to decorate cloth. “Add to” techniques include embroidery and appliqué. “Take away” refers to the removal of threads from cloth to create intricate patterns. Decorated cloth is often a powerful expressive medium in African life, a kind of visual language that can be read by those familiar with it. This installation of cloths, drawn primarily from the DMA’s acclaimed collection of African art, explores these techniques as they have been—and still are—practiced in Mali, Republic of Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. “

Captions for the photos are:

Tunic with appliquéd designs, Probably 1920s, Cameroon: Kom people, cotton and wool; commercially woven fabrics, machine and hand stitching, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

Robe for a dignitary (boubou lomasa), Late 19th-early 20th century, Mali: Soninke people, cotton and silk; plain weave and embroidery, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

Woman's embroidered shawl, Probably 1930s, Nigeria or Cameroon, Africa, cotton, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund;

In my view the shawl is more likely to be from Ivory Coast.

“At Home in Africa” at Cleveland State University–some images.

Thanks are due to curator Kathy Curnow for generously sharing these images of the recent exhibition At Home in Africa at Cleveland State University.

New Exhibition–“At Home in Africa” at Cleveland State University

The Galleries at CSU

AT HOME IN AFRICA

Design, Beauty and Pleasing Irregularity in Domestic Settings

Thursday, August 28 – Saturday, October 4, 2014

“At Home in Africa is an exhibition that features the inspirational and creative design, pattern and form found in a wide variety of traditional handcrafted objects from African homes of the past 130 years, covering over 70 ethnic groups from 30 countries.

The 300-plus objects bring the variety of life in African homes to the forefront, spotlighting the handcrafted beauty apparent in everyday objects. The designs of these objects feature amazing diversity in technique and creativity. An appreciation of the daily rhythms of life are paired with an intent to provide inspiration to designers of all types—graphic, fashion, interior, jewelry—and an up-close example of the reason so many African works are such a part of global design influence.”

A catalogue is, or will be published. There is an attractive website here and a very useful Pinterest page here.

New Exhibition: “Yards of Style, African-Print Cloths of Ghana” at the Fowler Museum, UCLA

Fowler in Focus: Yards of Style, African-Print Cloths of Ghana
Aug 24–Dec 14, 2014
”The larger markets in West Africa offer everything from foodstuffs to scrap metal to used clothing—and they also boast hundreds and hundreds of stalls filled with printed cloth. With some vendors selling just a few cloths and others featuring enormous stacks of six- and twelve-yard panels, these markets offer something for everyone. Ubiquitous throughout urban and rural Africa as garments and head wraps, African-print cloths are also popping up on fashion show runways and in retail fashion catalogs in the United States and Europe.

African market vendors may carry cloths made in Holland, Ghana and other West African nations, as well as China, assuring a wide choice of prices and styles that will cater to their diverse customer base. The vibrant visual imagery on the textiles is equally varied, from everyday items like car keys, neckties, clothespins, electric fans, and cell phones, to chiefly swords and royal regalia, to the likenesses of world leaders and sports celebrities (Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, and Muhammad Ali, to name just a few!). As such, these double-sided, factory-produced cloths communicate messages about individual and community values, reveal perspectives on taste and fashion, and offer telling insights into the global economy.

This exhibition is curated by Betsy D. Quick, Director of Education and Curatorial Affairs, Fowler Museum at UCLA, with Suzanne Gott, Art History and Visual Culture, Department of Critical Studies, University of British Columbia, Okanagan.”

Tioup, tak, etc. - Couleurs textiles du Sénégal : Some photos.

French African textile expert Anne Grosfilley who kindly sent these photographs wrote -  “Here are some photographs on the exhibition about dyeing in Sénégal. It is superb, full of Colours. It is set as a series of portraits, so you can read the story of the people behind the crafts, and learn about their training and everyday Life. All the aspects of dyeing are presented, from traditional plants to synthetic dyes, from dyeing to tailoring. The exhibition ends in a tailor workshop, where you can have a go trying on boubous of different styles. All the steps of the transformation of the cloth allow to understand the process to get the different patterns. Unfortunately, there is no catalogue, but a series of lectures and workshops.  This is an exhibition I recommend, and the Clermont Ferrand Bargoin Textile museum is a place to know, as they have a big interest in Africa. Their next project is to host the exhibition of the second edition of FITE (International Festival of Extraordinary Textiles), and after that they curate an exhibition on unusual Moroccan carpets.”

The exhibition “Tioup, tak, etc. - Couleurs textiles du Sénégal” continues at Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand, France until March 31. There is a programme of events, details here.

Click on the photos to enlarge. All photos copyright Anne Grosfilley. If you don’t already have it, do lookout for Anne’s book which is still available via Amazon.