“Congo Masks: Masterpieces from Central Africa” is showing at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts through Feb. 24. (Photo by David Stover, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)
The worn face may be singing an ancient song. This mask, perhaps dating to before the 17th century, is a rare copper piece fashioned by the Kongo-Dinga people of the African Congo. Even within a vitrine it possesses a vital power. It was a ceremonial object, probably not worn, and through the centuries repeatedly cleaned and patched. This piece took part in the telling of many stories. You can see and hear some of them, while others, you need to listen closer.
It is one of more than 130 masks, ritual pieces and musical instruments, dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries, on exhibit in “Congo Masks: Masterpieces From Central Africa,” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts through Feb. 24.
The presentation of the creativity of greater than 40 different Congolese cultural groups is impressive and includes identifying maps, informative plaques about the regions in galleries designed to reflect the environment of those districts from which the art originates. The lighting, the colors and the use of multi-media is at the accustomed high standards of the VMFA. The exhibition is a collaboration with the Richmond-based institution, the Congo Basin Art History Research Center, Tribal Arts, S.P.R.I., of Brussels, Belgium, and Ethnic Art and Culture Limited, Hong Kong.
Marc Leo Felix, world- renowned art historian, linguist, curator and collector, has conducted extensive field research across the Congo Basin since the 1960s and authored dozens of books and articles on the ritual arts of Central Africa. "Congo Masks" presents renowned objects from his and other important collections, many for the first time in the United States, with some examples in the exhibition being among the only known and finest in existence.
The immense full-color catalog reflect the depth of scholarship and understanding of the work.
The final text plaque of the show, “The Lives of Masks,” explains that while imbued with ritual significance, they possess a “limitless, individual importance and beauty” that “can also live on in the international art market ... Their performances and appearances carry great cultural significance, and the spirit, emotion and power with which these ritual objects are imbued is undeniably palpable regardless of the context. When viewed as fragmented, living objects of both art and community, the importance and versatility of Congolese masks can be far better understood and appreciated.”
This text serves as a "close parenthesis" to text blocks at the beginning of the exhibition that ushers the viewer through concise but informative language into this world. We read of the 14th century or earlier ruling groups, the Kuba Kingdom, and the Luba and Lunda Empires. Europeans began their inroads through trade until the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Orchestrated by German chancellor Count Otto von Bismarck, the nations of Europe sat around a giant table and divvied up Africa like choice cuts of meat.
Under the behest and the rapacious greed of King Leopold II of Belgium, who never once visited his vassal state, the small nation ruled and exploited much of what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“These developments ushered in an era of colonialism during which Congolese and European languages, beliefs, customs and artistic practices were forcefully merged and exchanged on a massive scale,” a plaque at exhibition reads.
This region, roughly three times the size of Texas —about as big as all of Western Europe — and holding within its vast reaches incredible natural resources, could easily have been the inspiration in popular culture for the mythical and secretive nation of Wakanda. The history of the Congo, though, is one of astounding violence and incomprehensible deprivation, both by colonizers and later, for 32 years the land, renamed Zaire, was ruled by the reactionary and ruthless Mobutu Sese Seko.
That history is delved into by historian Adam Hochschild in his “King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.”
This exhibition comes at a particularly attenuated moment of cultural interpretation and the distinction between art, artifact and national inheritance. Four years ago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts chose to return eight works from Nigeria that its administration was convinced came to them from ultimately illegal sources. A controversial report delivered in late last month to French President Emmanuel Macron urged that African art works be returned to their nation of origin. Macron immediately called for the return of 26 pieces held by the Quai Branly Museum. And just last week, Belgium’s Africa Museum re-opened after a five-year re-contextualizing overhaul of its 120,000 items, most of it brought during the period of colonization from the Congo.
And, then, there’s the scene in the film “Black Panther” where the story’s ostensible bad guy, Killmonger, announces that he’s repatriating African items from a British museum — but his method is less nuanced. Before poisoning the curator, Killmonger makes the point that these objects were stolen, not purchased. The scene put a fine point on discussions about the ways and means of returning African art.
Museum director Alex Nyerges recently told us that the VMFA is, first, an art museum. “Our primary objective and our singular goal was to showcase the amazing artistic tradition of the Congo through this vast array of masks,” he said.
Michael R. Taylor, chief curator and deputy director for art and education, says that the exhibition was the focus of a curatorial discussion. “Many of the masks in the show predate and are post Belgian rule,” he explains. In these conversations it was pointed out that the Congolese people prefer not to be shown as a desperate and oppressed people. “We wanted to celebrate the magic power of these objects and take them out of the typical narrative of the Congolese as victims, but as a people maintaining their cultural heritage.”
Taylor further said that after their use in rituals, the pieces are stored away in special places. They are used, often for generations, and they wear out. Like all things, they have a span of life. The community then decides what to do with the pieces that have fulfilled their function, whether in some form to retire them through a deconsecration, perhaps by burning, or to send them into the world.
The VMFA is, throughout the run of "Congo Masks," scheduling mask-making events, including one coming up at the Byrd Theatre on Dec. 15, noon to 2 p.m., the Libbie Mill Henrico County Public Library on Dec. 18 from 6-8 p.m., and at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School on Dec. 29, 2-4 p.m., as part of the Elegba Folklore Society’s Kwanzaa Festival. For details about tickets and related activities, see here.
