I Remember Now

I fell in love with African art again today.

I was doing some readings in the Art and Architecture Library when I noticed the dustjackets of all the new books that were taped to the wall. They had them organized by geographic region, and I saw the African ones first. I decided to check out one of the books, a large monograph simply entitled "Songye." The Songye peoples live in southern central Africa, in Congo, and they are one of my favorite art-producing peoples in the region. The Songye make these really fun statues, called "nkishi" (plural mankishi) with these incredibly expressive faces, almost like charicatures. It's fun to look at them and try to make analogies for what they look like. Some resemble playground bullies, other ones look like crazy homeless people or old wise teachers. I flipped through the book for hours, being sure to mark the pages with my favorite statues.

Sometimes I forget why I want to study African art, and this book made me remember. Usually when I pick up a book about African arts, it is full of these bland black and white photos, or just plain brown wood color snapshots. What people never realize is that statues like these are usually covered with vibrant colorful clothing, as well as ritual accoutrements. This book showed mankishi like they were meant to be seen, as these totally fun, awesome, and beautiful creations of a society that is anything but primitive. I remembered that I want to study African art because I see it the way the author of this book does, and I think few people do.

Did you click on the mankishi links? Aren't they cool? And don't you like African art just a little bit now too?