Blog Post #4 Museum Trip

The exhibit that I went to see was located at the Fowler museum here on campus. It is interesting because this exhibit has been on going and i have walked passed the advertisement several times without really giving a second thought about it. The curiosity got the better of me because this post finally gave me an excuse to go an check it out. The exhibit is titled Intersections: World Arts and Local Lives and it takes items from Africa, Asia the Pacific and America; comparing them and seeing just how the arts of these various cultures affected the people who lived in the society that was heavily influenced by it’s art.

This was interesting, because in the modern world, art is considerably worth less and less to the common person. Honestly, this is my view of art today, I rarely ever look at it until I have to do some kind of work on it and in this case, it’s my post. Nonetheless, the piece that I found interesting about the exhibit was a mask that comes from Cameroon in Africa. The purpose of this mask was to demonstrate a symbol of high importance and it is even dubbed a royal mask by the exhibit. According to the information provided the mask belonged to a group of people called the Bamileke, who live in and near modern day Cameroon.

The appearance of the mask is odd as you can see, it almost look like it has rabbit ears. But upon actually seeing an image of the chiefs of this particular group. The headdress  that they wear is pointed into the same shape as the mask portrays. The craftsmanship on it is also very impressive. You can tell whoever made it wanted to give their best possible rendition of royalty, while maintaining respect for them.

This was just one part of the exhibit, however it was the piece that they were trying to highlight because there are only 12 known to exist, at least to all of us outside of their society. So the rarity made this piece all the more exciting. There are also numerous other pieces from pre-contact America, ancient China and various Pacific Islander artworks. I highly recommend checking out the Fowler Museum.

In regards to the actual layout of the museum, people went through at a steady pace through the first and second sections, but they went through the third section very quick. Ironically, this amazing mask comes from the third section, so I was shocked. Yet I understand as the pieces were definitely smaller than the pieces of the previous two. The fourth section, without a doubt got the most attention as it was the most crowded.

Technology was kept at a minimum in the museum, which made the pieces feel more authentic, I thought this was appropriate though, because the artifacts were much older and come from cultures that reflected a more connected tone with the outside world. Technology separates people from the Environment of the Earth, yet these pieces demonstrated connectedness, thus making it a good move to be minimal with the tech. The lighting, I must say, was phenomenal. Every detail was illuminated and it made the work much more special to observe.

-Apologies, I had to crop the original picture because the file was to large, better images exist on the web if you want to see a more complete picture.