In the realm of African art, masks are some of the most exemplary and iconic artworks. Whether displayed to be admired for their shape, form, and volumes, or presented in dialogue with ethnographic information and contextual images, masks are omnipresent in collections and displays of African art. As aesthetic and ethnographic objects, masks are used as gateways to the understanding and appreciation of “cultural styles” as well as the formal and creative solutions adopted by artists and workshops. Yet the appeal of masks also relies on their perceived irreducible difference and mysterious spiritual aura. Even when isolated and stripped of their fiber costumes and attachments, there is always a reference to the body of an absent wearer, thus evoking a situated and embodied history of production, performance, and social meaning that often does not accompany the mask into the museum. Yet even when isolated and stripped of their embodied meaning,...
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Summer 2016
June 01 2016
Masks on the Move: Defying Genres, Styles, and Traditions in the Cameroonian Grassfields
Silvia Forni
Silvia Forni
Silvia Forni is Curator of African Arts and Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. She has conducted research in Cameroon since 1998. She recently edited the volume Africa in the Market with Christopher B. Steiner Currently she is working with Doran Ross working on the exhibition and book project Art, Honor, and Ridicule: Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana. [email protected]
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Silvia Forni
Silvia Forni is Curator of African Arts and Cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. She has conducted research in Cameroon since 1998. She recently edited the volume Africa in the Market with Christopher B. Steiner Currently she is working with Doran Ross working on the exhibition and book project Art, Honor, and Ridicule: Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana. [email protected]
Online ISSN: 1937-2108
Print ISSN: 0001-9933
© 2016 by the Regents of the University of California.
2016
African Arts (2016) 49 (2): 38–53.
Citation
Silvia Forni; Masks on the Move: Defying Genres, Styles, and Traditions in the Cameroonian Grassfields. African Arts 2016; 49 (2): 38–53. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/AFAR_a_00285
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