USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nelson Museum Shares A Curator To Enhance Its African Galleries By Alice Thorson (The Kansas City Star)

The African galleries at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will be undergoing a transformation in coming months.

The department has a new curator, whose mission is to bring new energy to the room and exhibit cases.

Nii Quarcoopome (nee KWAR-koo-pohm), an award-winning scholar and sought-after expert, signed on earlier this year to devote one-quarter of his time to the Nelson.

Under an arrangement worked out with the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Ghanaian-born Quarcoopome will spend the rest of his time in Detroit, where he will continue as head of the department of Africa, Oceania and the Indigenous Americas.

The shared-curator idea grew out of Quarcoopome's "Through African Eyes" exhibit, which opened at the Nelson in September 2010.

That show opened about the time that Julián Zugazagoitia arrived to become the Nelson's director and chief executive officer.

"I found (it) to be one of the most intelligent and visually stimulating shows I've seen in many years," Zugazagoitia said. "Then, when (Nii) came in. He was so generous with his time and perspective. I think it's fair to say that we hit it off."

At last year's American Association of Museums meeting in Houston, Zugazagoitia approached the DIA's director, Graham Beal, about having Quarcoopome work with the Nelson on a regular basis.

"I was raving about Nii and said, 'Would you be willing to share?' " he recounted.

Zugazagoitia figured it was a long shot, but to his delight, Beal said yes, and Quarcoopome loved the idea.

"It was very dynamic and very quick," Zugazagoitia said.

The Nelson's African art department has been without a curatorial head since the departure of Elisabeth Cameron in May 2001. Over the next few years, African art matters were handled by assistant curator Joyce M. Youmans. Her major project, achieved in consultation with then-director Marc Wilson, was the permanent collection display in the Bloch Building's African galleries, which opened in 2007.

Quarcoopome is full of enthusiasm for the objects and the promise of stellar gifts from from Donald J. and Adele C. Hall:

"This is a terrific collection," he said in a recent interview.

But he has some ideas about how to make the presentation a lot more engaging.

"Right now," he said, "you're looking at masterpieces. I characterize that presentation as a series of islands. I don't want the public to think African art is static. We need to project dynamism."

Like Cameron, Quarcoopome earned his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studied with African art scholar Arnold Rubin, who was known for stressing the importance of context in understanding African art.

And context is key to Quarcoopome's vision for the African galleries. He has dealt with the issue before, as curator in charge of Detroit's reinstallation of its African art collection in 2007. One of the first things he wants to do at the Nelson is incorporate one or two videos that show how masks and sculptures function in African rituals and culture.

"I want people to experience works the same way Africans would have," he said. "To see a video of a piece sends a powerful message that you're not just looking at a work of art, but a functional object that has meaning in the community."

Quarcoopome plans to use photographs in the galleries to create "engaging vistas" and to fulfill some of the functions performed by written labels.

He also will move objects around to create new relationships and tell stories.

Quarcoopome envisions showing Kuba textiles with Kuba objects such as masks and cups, to focus on the symbolic significance of their similar motifs.

And there are a few things he would like to acquire.

The collection needs "one great Akan leadership symbol with gold," he said. "If you put gold next to kente (cloth), you capture the essence of Akan leadership art."

Another thing he would add is a nkisi nkonde, used by the Kongo and related peoples.

Carved from the wood of a sacred tree, the nail-studded figures "serve as containers for magical powers that allow them to act in specific ways," Quarcoopome said. "Each nail is a record of a transaction that has been performed in front of the figure — to relieve somebody of an illness, to settle a dispute, to bring peace. There are many different transactions."

A pride of the Detroit Institute's African collection is a palace door by the Yoruba artist, Olowe of Ise, "one of the greatest 20th-century sculptors to come out of Africa," Quarcoopome says.

That's the main reason his work should be represented in the Nelson's collection, but there's another. Too often,

Quarcoopome says, people view works of African art without seeing the artist's name, which "reinforces the notion that the objects are ethnographic." Having a name, he says, "refocuses people (on the fact) that these works were created by skilled individual artists who had their own idiosyncratic ways of representing communal ideals." Tradition and globalism

In his home of Ghana, it is common, Quarcoopome said, for people to wear a Western suit to their jobs in government offices, and change to traditional clothes on weekends to attend funerals and other rituals.

They "juggle tradition in a unique way," he said, noting that the same back-and-forth occurs in the cultural sphere, where "traditional art is still produced, and serious contemporary artists produce works for the broader global market."

One of the most famous names in international contemporary art is El Anatsui, the Ghanaian-born artist known for his shimmering tapestries made from flattened aluminum liquor bottle tops.

In 2008, the Nelson purchased a huge El Anatsui tapestry, "Dusasa I," for the modern and contemporary collection with funds from a $10 million gift from the William T. Kemper Foundation/Commerce Bank, Trustee.

It's "the best example" of the artist's work, Quarcoopome says, and he would like to see it displayed next to a rotation of cloths from West Africa.

The pairing would make the point, he said, that "artists can be global artists and still acknowledge inspiration from African traditions."

At the heart of Quarcoopome's curatorial philosophy is a commitment "to delve deep into African systems of thought and make that control the interpretation (of objects)."

"I want to make sure the African voice is strong," he said. "The colonial conquest of the late 19th century was the pivotal moment when African art was introduced to the world. Objects were taken during the colonial wars, and the accepted narrative was from a European voice."

That European cultural bias persisted well into the 20th century and was at the heart of the controversy surrounding the Museum of Modern Art's big "Primitivism and Modern Art" show in the mid-1980s.

Quarcoopome has an ambitious special exhibition in mind that would return to the roots of the issue.

"I'm going to be looking at the journey of African objects from the colonial wars to the present and at the histories of specific African objects that emerged from that colonial encounter," he said.

Much as he did with "Through African Eyes," Quarcoopome wants to look at multiple narratives.

"I'm trying to dispel the notion that all Africans experienced the colonial moment the same way," he said. "I'm also looking at competing European narratives about the colonial encounter and the justification for the expropriation of these works."

The Nelson/DIA partnership over Quarcoopome's curatorial energies could boost his ability to bring big, special exhibitions to fruition.

"I'm encouraged by what happened with 'Through African Eyes,' " he said. The show was shown at both museums. "This would be a great fit again for the two institutions to collaborate."

 

 

 

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