VIEW ALL WALTON'S BLOG ENTRIES
Despite ongoing renovations through Spring 2007 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's galleries for the arts of Oceania, a fascinating exhibit from the Papuan Gulf will remain in place through September. Five dozen stunning sculptures and around 30 rare photographs—some on display for the first time—further underscore the Met's deep commitment to Oceania as well as raise fascinating questions about the history of ethnographic displays of material from this little-known region of the world.
Late 19th-century missionaries to the Papuan Gulf certainly made their mark, and their impact cannot be underestimated, for without their work we would likely have no pictorial record of indigenous practices or photographic records of the original contexts of their sculpture. Yet given that explorers re-enacted or recreated scenes for the camera, this additionally complicates explication of the astounding photographs now on display. For more on that subject, Catherine Lutz's fascinating book Reading National Geographic (1993) explores how highly subjective color, pose, framing, and vantage point are in modern ethnographic photography, and need not be further discussed here.
Some of the most striking photographs include those of Albert Buell Lewis (1912), of several boys posing with a spirit board that Lewis purchased. Lewis collected objects for Chicago's Field Museum, and his photographs offer an astounding insight into this vanished society. For several photographs of similar surroundings show how these villages progressed over long periods of time. For example, nearly 40 years earlier in 1874, William Lawes established the London Missionary Society's station at Port Moresby. Between 1881-89 he photographed young men with Maiva shields, one of the first images we have available of that period, taken at "a clearing near the mission station." This breathtaking image is interesting for how the subjects are framed, for the terrific contrasts of light and dark, and also for its exotic and otherworldly qualities. With the subjects' feet firmly planted on the ground and faces staring directly at the camera, one has to wonder about the background activity in the distant waters. It's a rather sad commentary that now 100 years after Lawes' death, Port Moresby is arguably one of the most unstable and troubled cities in the world.
Other photographs feature dancers—a perennial subject in ethnographic photography—such as photos of masked dancers by Paul Baron de Rauterfeld (1925), Francis Edgar Williams (1931), and by far the most extraordinary, those of James Francis Hurley, an Australian who caused much controversy with his work. Both his Two Basketry Figures in front of Daima (Longhouse) at Tovei, Urama (1921) and Four Keveke Dancers in front of the Longhouse (Daima) at Kinomere Village (1923) capture the spirit and excitement of these events. With many spectators present, these images seems all the more convincing and realisitic, despite that Hurley obviously took great care to pose his subjects. Although these images depict two different villages on Urama island during two different years, these kanipu and keveke masks and basketry figures are thrilling to observe during performances. Indeed, Hurley's revelations of this remote culture seen over 80 years ago are further augmented by two short clips, truly astonishing film footage totaling a mere 78 seconds in duration. Surprisingly impressive, Hurley's footage provides us one of the few glimpses into this world of the longhouse. On the one hand, Hurley played the subjective National Geographic archetype by rearranging interiors, posing or overdressing people, and behaving poorly, later causing controversy in his native Australia. Yet without Hurley, we would have no visual record of these images, for this village no longer exists, and "many of the masks Hurley photographed were destroyed soon after they were performed." Perhaps insights into ephemeral culture come at a high price, but these clips may well be "our only record of the pictured objects' existence."
Over time, this world of the longhouse was well-documented, and other images by Lewis of a longhouse in Maipua village (1912) as well as one by Ernest Sterne Usher (1914-6) reinforce how frequent a subject of photography as well as "locus of artistic and ceremonial life" these longhouses were. Throughout this exhibition, the Met judiciously and fortuitously presents objects from these longhouses in vitrines above the framed photographs. These encased objects, presented in a neutral setting in front of a pastel background, succeed where the rather ethnographically questionable new Musée du quai Branly in Paris struggles. For example, de Rauterfeld's Irivake Figure in the Longhouse (1925) seems truly astonishing even without the subdued lighting or fetishism of the exotic so prevalent at the Musée du quai Branly. Even San Francisco's relatively new de Young museum falls plague to this fetishism in its Oceanic galleries, showing a fair number of John Friede's hundreds of donated pieces in a slightly exaggerated context. The message seems a bit forced, perhaps, though audiences surely love it. Of course, the museum does remind us that this exhibition "marks the first time that Rautenfeld's photograph and the actual irivake sculpture are exhibited together." We see how this object photographed 80 years ago looked in its actual context, contrasted nicely with how it looks now on a neutral background behind plexiglas, leaving the imagination to do a bit of legwork. By adroitly showing both object and photograph together, the Met offers a perspicacious cultural context without any forced pageantry. "Coaxing the Spirits to Dance" eagerly foreshadows the re-opening of these monumental galleries in the coming months.
photo: James Francis Hurley, Four Keveke Dancers in front of the Longhouse (Daima) at Kinomere Village (1923), Papuan Gulf, Urama Island, Kinomere Village, Courtesy of the Australian Museum, Sydney.
Tags:
albert buell lewis, catherine lutz, de young, ernest sterne usher, francis edgar williams, james francis hurley, john friede, met, musee du quai branly, oceania, papuan gulf, paul baron de rauterfeld, reading national geographic, william lawes
© All rights reserved.
Posted on 1/2/2007
(
Permanent Link
)
Send to Friend
