An Inside Story

AN INSIDE STORY d e l e j e g e T wo authoritative wood sculptures, each situated about 30 yards apart, admit the visitor. The first, Mustapha Dime's 1994 Le Pharaoh, presides with a haughty, magisterial aplomb on a white, 3-foot high pedestal at the central porch of the museum, which also doubles as a reception bowel for the institution's streams of visitors. The second, Adinsibuli Stood Tall, is one of El Anatsui's most recent explorations in wood. Behind it a huge black, flat wooden wall, radiant in a shining jet hue, stretches across the wide hallway which admits visitors to the exhibition arena. This wall is made up of two overlapping panels which are separated by a six-foot space through which visitors navigate their way into the main exhibition . Inscribed over a concentric emblem, and in a sparkling yellow across these two walls is the theme of the show: "An Inside Story: African Art of Our Time" at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan, the first major show of contemporary African art in this nation of 120 million. Curated by Yukiya Kawaguchi with the assistance of Azumaya Takashi, "African Art of Our Time" is, presumably, the exclamation mark on the series of minor, loosely organized shows on aspects of modern African art which have appeared in Japan in recent memory. Nestled comfortably within the verdant serenity of gently undulating fields that were once part of a golf course, Setagaya Art Museum was opened to the public in 1986 to cater to the cultural needs of members of this 800,000-strong community. This museum is an exquisite site, one that has the amplitude of space that is necessary for a show that is as sweepingly inclusive and eclectic as the one under discussion. It is not a museum of ethnology nor anthropology; neither is it a museum of natural history. That it is a museum of modern art bears emphasis considering the tendency by some curators to resist the attempt at extricating modern African art from the throttling grips of anthropology and locate it where it rightly belongs. The opening of this exhibition also provides an insight into the seriousness which this museum accords contemporary African art. From "Three Generations of Wyeth Art" (1989) through "Chagall" (1989) to "The Treasures of the British Museum (1990) and "Vincent van Gogh and Japan," (1992), Setagaya has demonstrated its commitment to the promotion of diversity and multiculturalism through the visual arts. Thus, coming after this series of international shows, "African Art of Our Time" was designed to be the definitive show, one that introduces Africa to this country. A look at the eclectic scope and the pan-Africanist inclusiveness of this exhibit reveals that "African Art of Our Time" is ambitious. But its is an ambition that feeds on the existing fad in this field: the questionable tendency to concoct a melange of visual inscriptions under the generic rubric that is known as African art. Organized on an approach that recognizes creative hybridity and the comfortable coexistence of what in the west would have been categorized into several "isms," the show makes a stateI ment about the current trends in this field. It highlights the " " dialects of formal and informal art production in Africa and juxtaposes the high with the low, the ordinary with the spectacular , the humorous with the didactic. The huge exhibition space was partitioned into four compartments populated by a smorgasbord of works ranging from the usual staple of paintings and sculptures to installations and other visual enactments. At the center of the hallway is El Anatsui's Adinsibuli Stood Tall. Mr. Adinsibuli not only stands tall on this 12 foot wide and 20 yard long hallway, he also stands alone, poised, elegant, charming, inquisitive — even celebratory — and defiantly egoistic. What could there be in the composition of a mere log of weather-battered wood to command such a lively presence? What is it in this piece that instantly draws you closer to it, that makes you empathize with it? The strength of the piece derives from its poetry, a poetry that amplifies the natural contours of the medium. Standing about 12...