Africa: tribalism, beauty and look

Huesca,

It was not his best known facet, but in addition to architect and artist (undecided between studying architecture and beautiful arts, he decided on the first, since the painting seemed to him Too individual And he sought that his work had a social function), José Manuel Pérez Latorre was a collector, one that everything was interested in, hence his funds are very wide in his themes and in the character of his pieces; and who cared more to possess and discover the objects to exhibit them to the public.

An important chapter of that collection is the African art, the protagonist until April of a exhibition in the exhibition hall of the Diputación de Huesca, curated by Ángel Martín, which collects both works dated between the s. V AC and the XX of our era, selected for their ethnographic and artistic value and treasured by Pérez Latorre with the advice of specialists and connoisseurs of the tribal cultures of central and western Africa, like others acquired attending to their taste and personal desire, that is, depending on its beauty rather than its authenticity or anthropological meaning. The set of pieces can give rise to reflect, and with these inquiries it has been decided that the route ends, about the transformation of the western gaze towards African creation, from a first tendency to judge it for its plastic interest to more recent currents that value it according to ethnic criteria or, as we said, anthropological.

The first section of the exhibition, African tribal artremember that, in this continent, as in any other and in every time, art projects the cosmogonies with which societies have tried to explain themselves and the world. Animism is the basis from which to understand many of these works, especially those dedicated to the phases of the life of every individual, the rites of passage, the balance between man and nature or the rains and droughts that in turn determined the periods of planting and harvesting. Other creations respond to the desire to neutralize evils and diseases or to pay tribute to the powerful.

Among the pieces that we will contemplate in this section are the mask LWA-LWA of the hunter societies of the Congo center, propitiatory sculptures of the Lobi From Burkina Faso, and above all the heads of Nok’s culture, the oldest sculptures made in black Africa, a history of the objects in terracotta of the cultures of Guimbala, dated between the 10 and twelfth century, and Djenné, dated between the XI and the XVI, in both cases from Mali.

Character holding a snake. Djenné culture. Mali, XII-XVI centuries. Pérez Latorre collection

Thinker. Djenné culture. Mali, XII-XVI centuries. Pérez Latorre collection

Those works that Pérez Latorre endorsed by instinct staff focus the section Art and copy in Africa: These are objects that did not have ritual use nor can they be attached to a specific social, religious or political context, but are contemporary copies, of those other works that were integrated into different belief systems. The elaboration of these replicas began to be carried out at the end of the 19th century to generalize in the mid -twentieth, given its increasing demand by the European and Western public (coinciding with the lowest number of originals available for sale).

Initially, these copies were made in countries that were the cradle of the first pieces, but gradually its realization extended to the whole of the continent and when its faithfulness was evident, it was indicated in its explanatory poster. Other compositions were carried out with greater freedom, without starting from specific models or mixing features of different styles, times and geographies: they were cataloged as free copies. Most of this type in the Oscense exhibition respond to the first model: they were carried out in countries of origin.

Cimera mask. Mumuye culture. Nigeria, second half of the nineteenth century-first half of the twentieth century. Pérez Latorre collection

Facial mask. LWALWA CULTURE. Democratic Republic of Congo, early twentieth century

Finally, as we advanced, this exhibition ends by making a little history, reviewing how the twentieth century was one in which, transport and communications through, the West discovered African art from a dimension closer to its original meaning: stripping it of excessive exotism, or its possible consideration as a trophy of the traveler; The avant -garde artists were not stolen to their influence and the intellectuals and writers made it, in parallel, the object of their thinking.

This evolution occurred at different stages: from the value of its plasticity to the knowledge of its relationship with the life and beliefs for a long time called. Primitive peoples. Public and private collectors had a lot to do in that transition from the aesthetic valuation to the scientist, from the study of its sacred dimension to that of the creative.