Robert-Goldwater-Library

Mel Gibson to star in movie "glyph-hanger"

  From the New York Times:

Mayans Are Next for Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson is about to begin shooting a new action movie with dialogue entirely in an ancient Mayan language, Reuters reported. Mr. Gibson, 49, whose film "The Passion of the Christ" was in Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew and made $600 million around the world last year, is to begin filming "Apocalypto" next month in Mexico. "It's set before the conquest," Mr. Gibson said at a news conference in Veracruz, "so there are no European faces, and we are using mostly indigenous people and actors from Mexico City." He added, "There's still a lot of mystery to the Mayan culture, but when all is said and done, it's just the backdrop to what I'm doing - creating an action adventure of mythic proportions." The film, made by Mr. Gibson's Icon production company, has an undisclosed budget, and the script remains under wraps. It is to be distributed by Disney.

Reported elsewhere: Associated Press (with Mel in long beard) -- Variety news item -- La Voz de Aztlan

Image sources: left / right

Goldwater Library receives Friede Collection catalog

A copy of the mammoth publication New Guinea Art: Masterpieces of the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede (San Francisco: 2005) has just arrived at the Goldwater Library. The library copy of this two-volume boxed set was donated by John Friede.

This elegant two-volume publication depicts the art of New Guinea in richer detail than ever before. It is a detailed and broad-based survey, drawn from the Jolika Collection of John and Marcia Friede, the world’s foremost private collection. Volume I contains the lavish selection of magnificent color plates. Volume II features three essays by noted scholars and an extensive, illustrated catalogue section by John Friede. (from the publisher's blurb)

The essays:

• One symphony from many voices: collecting activities, and the culture of collecting since 1870, by Robert L. Welsch.
• Major themes in New Guinea art, by Dirk Smidt.
• Oceania: objects of revelation and desire, by Philippe Peltier.
• Radiocarbon dating of New Guinea carvings from the Jolika Collection, by Gregory Hodgins.

 

The catalog was published on the occasion of the exhibition at the De Young Museum of the Friede bequest to the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco as part of the De Young's gala re-opening this October. A compilation of news stories on the De Young, the new building and re-opening, and the appointment of Christina Hellmuth as the Pacific curator, can be found here.

The book, jointly published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and 5 Continents, Paris, is distributed in the United States by the Antique Collectors' Club.

Where's the Goldwater Library copy? Find it in Watsonline.

 

Indigenous Self-Portraiture, Chiapas

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via NYTimes:
Self-Portraits by Invisible People [excerpts]
By CAROL KINO
Published: October 23, 2005

SINCE the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in 1519, the story of that country's indigenous people has largely been told by others. And, since the 19th century, much of it has been told through photography.

Not long after the invention of the daguerreotype, European and American archaeologist-adventurers were hauling their equipment across the Yucatán to photograph Maya ruins. They were soon followed by anthropologists, like the American ethnographer Frederick Starr, who focused their cameras on human beings. Then, during the Mexican Renaissance of the 1920's, art photographers like Tina Modotti and her Mexico City-born protégé, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, began to celebrate the indigenous life and culture in their work.

But in 1992 a small organization in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state, began to correct this imbalance by providing cameras and basic photography instruction to the local Maya Indians, many of whom could be descendants of those who were depicted by outsiders in the past. To date, the organization, the Chiapas Photography Project, has worked with more than 250 Maya photographers from 10 different ethnic groups living in and around the highlands city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, a tourist magnet that is the commercial locus for Indians living throughout the state. [...]

Because many of the photographers live in the Zapatista conflict zone, one might logically expect their lenses to be trained on political subject matter. Instead, they tend to focus on the pleasures of daily life, revealing an aesthetic outlook that is more elegant and spare than historical photography might suggest. [read full article]

More about the Chiapas Photography Project:

The Indigenous Photography Archive is an artistic project by and for indigenous photographers in Chiapas. AFI has four main activities: education, collection, outreach, and research.

Education: LOK´TAMAYACH directs most of the educational activities, which begin with basic instruction about camera use and continue with a program of workshops to improve technique and develop individual projects.

Collection: The base of the collection, which is housed at AFI, is made up of the photographers’ negatives, with approximately 75,000 images, the majority of which are color, with a growing area of black and white work. The photographers are not only forming this collection for their present-day communities, but so that their descendants will have their own visual history. Among the many themes are portraits, food, and fiestas.

Outreach: Activities include exhibitions and publications as well as slide presentations and panel discussions.

Research: The indigenous photographers as well as many international, outside researchers consult AFI’s collection and frequently request permission to use images for academic ends – books, theses, articles, videos, etc.

Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Online Exhibits

For those unable to make the trip out west, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, hosts several online exhibitions on its website that serve to archive or complement special exhibits held at the museum and as well as highlight objects from the permanent collection.

Currently on view:

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effigy, stone, human foot
AD 1200-1400
site: Fox Place
project: Roswell Relief Route

Roads to the Past: Fifty Years of Highway Archaeology 
During the past fifty years, the state of New Mexico's highway archaeology program has recorded thousands of sites and conducted excavations at hundreds. Roads to the Past describes the history of the highway archaeology program and provides a glimpse of the contributions the program has made to our knowledge of the past 8,000 years of New Mexico history.

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Touched by Fire: The Art, Life, and Legacy of Maria Martinez
This online exhibition complements the temporary exhibition of the same name and showcases the life and work of the legendary San Ildefonso potter who forever changed the world of Indian art.

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Tourist Icons: Native American Kitsch, Camp, and Fine Art Along Route 66
Highlights Native American art and artifacts of the Route 66 era.

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Melon Jar, 1995
Andrew Padilla, Laguna
Seed Jar, 1982
Dorothy Torivio, Acoma

The Buchsbaum Gallery of Southwestern Pottery
This online introduction highlights some of the themes in the permanent exhibit as well as a few of the most spectacular objects.

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Milton Laughing

Weaving in the Margins: Navajo Men as Weavers
Weaving in the Margins: Navajo Men as Weavers was exhibited at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture from June 13 through September 5, 1999. This online version of Weaving in the Margins introduces the lives and work of the nine male weavers who who participated in the exhibition.

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Navajo belt buckle
ca. 1890
photo: Blaire Clark

Keystone of the Arch: The Stewart Collection
The Keystone of the Arch: The Stewart Collection, a temporary exhibit on display through February 18, 2001, includes some of the most significant objects in the collection of Philip and Frances Stewart.

Podcasting at The Met

via Artnet Magazine :

VAN GOGH PODCAST AT THE MET
 
Is there any overlap between fans of Vincent van Gogh’s drawings and the 21st-century art of podcasting? Who knows! But if there is, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is ready. Visitors to the museum’s website can download, for free, a 16-minute podcast of excerpts from van Gogh’s fabulous letters, read by actor Kevin Bacon. The audio feature can also be downloaded from iTunes, or heard on the museum’s audio guide, which can be rented for $6.

{What is Podcasting? via Wikipedia}

via the MMA website:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Audio Feature
Vincent van Gogh—The Letters

Hear actor Kevin Bacon read excerpts from letters by Van Gogh in a special audio feature.

"Drawing is the root of everything." —Vincent van Gogh

Listen to the full audio program. (RealPlayer: 16 minutes)

Download the audio file. (MP3: 11MB)

Subscribe to the podcast. (RSS)

See detailed instructions on how to download and/or subscribe.

African Zion

A 15th-century processional cross on display at PaceWildenstein.


via NYTimes:
Art Review | Art of Ethiopia
It Was Multicultural Before Multicultural Was Cool [excerpted]
By HOLLAND COTTER
Published: October 19, 2005

[...] The first major gallery sale exhibition of Ethiopian art in the United States opened yesterday at PaceWildenstein on East 57th Street. Organized by the London dealer Sam Fogg, it's a fierce, gorgeous, category-scrambling encounter.

With 50 objects, the show covers centuries of Africa's oldest Christian culture. In antiquity, Ethiopia was a mix of African people and Semitic people who had crossed the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. According to tradition, the first Ethiopian emperor, Menelik, son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to establish Ethiopia as the new Israel.

This Old Testament identity was, however, tailored to accommodate Christianity. And in the fifth century A.D., when Ethiopia was, with Rome and Persia, one of the superpowers of the ancient world, Ethiopian Orthodoxy became the state religion. Later Islam swept in, cutting the country off from the Byzantine world and adding its own cultural impulses. Influences from sub-Saharan Africa were subtle and constant. [...]

as elusive as it is, Ethiopian material is an increasingly hot property. Around the time of "African Zion," the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, which helped organize that exhibition, initiated an acquisition campaign. It now has the largest collection of Ethiopian material outside of Addis Ababa. In 1997, the Museum for African Art in New York presented "Art That Heals: The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia," which incorporated non-Orthodox talismanic painting, a few samples of which are at PaceWildenstein.

 Illuminated Gospel, Early 15th century
Ethiopia; Aksum region
Parchment (vellum), wood (acacia), tempera, ink; H. 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1998 (1998.66)

Meanwhile, the Met bought - from Mr. Fogg - a fabulous 15th-century Gospel, now in the Michael C. Rockefeller wing. The museum also had Ethiopian material in "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557)" last year, and recently organized a symposium on early Christian art in Africa. Can we consider Mr. Fogg's 57th Street exhibition a herald of further museum interest in Ethiopian art? I don't know. But I do know that, with its exhortative rhythms, it's as entrancing a show as any in the city right now, and in less than two weeks it will be gone.

[read on...]

"Art of Ethiopia" is at PaceWildenstein (Pace Primitive), 32 East 57th Street, seventh floor, Manhattan, (212) 421-3688, through Oct. 29.

Power Dressing

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Power Dressing : Men's Fashion and Prestige in Africa
at the Newark Museum
Oct. 19, 2005 - Jan. 22, 2005

via the Newark Museum website:
Power Dressing: Men’s Fashion and Prestige in Africa brings together fifty spectacular examples of male attire from across the continent, from Morocco to South Africa, representing over a century of fashion.  Drawn from the Museum’s own important collection, as well as from private and public lenders, the works on view reveal how a man’s clothing can define, sustain and reinforce ideas about power and status.  The exhibition is organized into four broad and intersecting themes-Style and Status, Fit for a King, Divine Dress, and Identity and Innovation -- that offer rich insights into the meanings of men's fashions within Africa's diverse and ever-changing cultural and political landscape.


The museum will also be hosting several events in conjunction with the exhibition:

Thursday, October 27, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Lecture: The Lure of Africa: From Saint Laurent to Gaultier
Andrew Bolton, Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Friday, November 4, 7:00-11:00 p.m
Afro-pop dance party: Dress To Impress

Sunday, November 6, 2:00-4:00 p.m
Symposium: Perspectives on African Dress
Join Christa Clarke, Curator of Africa, the Americas and the Pacific, along with a panel of distinguished scholars for a discussion of the dynamics of African dress.

Saturday, November 12, 2-3:00 p.m.
Dance performance: Kulu Mele

Sunday, November 20, 1:00-2:30 p.m.
Artist demonstration: Hands of the Master

Thursday, December 1, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Lecture: My Odyssey: Ancient African Civilizations
Mary McFadden, Fashion Designer

Friday, January 20, 7:00-11:00 p.m.
Poetry Slam
 

European Association of Mayanists Conference

Wayeb, the European Association of Mayanists, will hold their 10th annual conference December 5-10, 2005, in Leiden, the Netherlands. Co-sponsored Leiden University (Faculty of Archaeology, CNWS) and the National Museum of Ethnology at Leiden, the conference will combine a workshop on Maya hieroglyphic writing (Dec. 5-8) and a two-day long symposium (Dec. 9-10). The symposium, entitled The Maya and their Neighbours - Internal and External Contacts Through Time, will feature papers by two dozen European and North American scholars.

Programs, abstracts and papers of past conferences are available on the Wayeb web site.

Online registration is open through Nov. 30.

2005 Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival

The 2005 Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is scheduled to run this November 3-6 and 12-13 at the American Museum of Natural History, according to the museum's preliminary web page:

The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction. The Festival is distinguished by its outstanding selection of titles, which tackle diverse and challenging subjects, representing a range of issues and perspectives, and by the forums for discussion with filmmakers and speakers.

The Festival was founded by the American Museum of Natural History in 1977, in honor of pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead on her seventy-fifth birthday and her fiftieth year at the Museum. A film festival represented an especially apt form with which to celebrate Mead's life, as she was one of the first anthropologists to recognize the significance of film for fieldwork ... [read more]

The preliminary web site features a list of selected films and videos with description, as well as ticket information.

Caveat emptor

The Goldwater Library recently ordered and received a copy of African Sculpture by Warren Robbins, published by Schiffer Publishing of Atglen, Pa. The $49.95 (2005; ISBN 0764323326; hardcover) title promised to be a new work by the renowned scholar-collector of African art. To our chagrin it turns out to be a mediocre photomechanical reproduction of Robbins's African Art in American Collections originally published in 1966 -- a fact nowhere reflected in the publisher's web page for the work. This egregious oversight aside, Schiffer does offer in this edition a low-cost alternative to purchasing the 1966 version: A cursory search of Bookfinder finds that a copy of the 1966 edition will run you between $100 and $200. (It also shows the very same 2005 edition available from booksellers for as much as $155!)

Curiously Schiffer reissued the second edition of African Art in American Collections (1989) in 2004, under its original title.

This example of 'selling mutton as lamb' seems to have caught some of the cataloging community off guard as well. We have corrected our WATSONLINE cataloging record for African Sculpture to reflect the situation. Kudos to RALPH (The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities) for correctly identifying the most recent manifestation as a reissue of the original title -- too late to save our bacon, unfortunately.

UPDATE: I received the following reply to an email sent to the publisher:

Dear Mr. Day,

Thank you for taking the time to write. I will talk with the web site people about new wording or whatever the choice to try to be more informative. If the book des not suit you and you bought it from us, you may return it.

Sincerely,

Peter B. Schiffer

Schiffer Publishing Ltd.