african art styles

African Art Styles

National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave. SW; through Dec. 28; 202-633-4600. (Smithsonian)

A SHOW AT THE National Museum of African Art about expressing identity through body adornment is itself at a loss as to what and whom it is for. Much of this uncertainty is reflected in the title. Whether rendered as "TxtStyles/Fashioning Identity" or "TxtStyl3s/F4shng Id3ntty," it tends to undercut its own purposes.

Why should a wall panel venture a strained analogy between the communication methods of textiles and text messaging? Because antsy kids can't be bothered with the measured pacing of a well-assembled museum show?

It's a shame. Because many of the items on view — a red-orange hat whose broad, flat top once swooped dramatically down to the head of a married Zulu woman, a hunter's shirt from Burkina Faso outfitted with medicine bundles — are almost too beautiful to be believed. And because the questions raised by their selection and arrangement are truly profound.

The knotty story of post-colonial Africa is a matter of which traditions and cultures persist, which have been altered beyond recognition, and who in each case got to call the shots.

The exuberant ornamentation and splendid hues of a variety of fabrics point up the extent to which colonialism was about forcing the white straitjacket of "respectability" on societies that already had their own ideas of propriety, ideas that did not preclude extremes of formal invention, pattern, decoration and color.

Implicit is a question for Americans: Is the melting pot, an increasingly broad model for Western assimilation, performing alchemy in reverse, taking the golds of the world's cultures and transmuting them into lead?

» National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave. SW; through Dec. 28; 202-633-4600. (Smithsonian)

The Emperor's elite cavalry
Addis Adaba, Ethiopia
Photograph by Dimitrios E. Kyriazis, 1950-74
Dimitrios E. Kyriazis Collection
EEPA 1999-051926, frame 8
Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives
Photo courtesy NMAFA

African textiles, garments and accessories have long served as communicative genres and expressions of identity. An extraordinary array of clothing fashioned in cloth, leather, shells, beads, metal, plant fiber and horn transforms the human body into a work of art. Embedded in the various attire are coded messages that communicate ideas of life cycle, age, wealth, marital status, individual character and group identity within the earthly as well as spiritual communities.

Throughout Africa, symbolic notations convey the cultural language of spiritual affiliation, social status and the self. Systems of messaging transmitted through a variety of styles and forms include privileged use of costly materials, garments with hidden protective devices, textile patterns of rank and status, color codes set in glass beads, embroidered diagrammatic symbols, the modern and the fashionable. In these visual statements, identity is arranged in context-dependent attributes, mapped from distinct, often discrete items to complete ensembles.

Identity is continually being fashioned to meet new needs. Today, the materials and images of our techno-cultural age are being absorbed and assimilated more frequently into everyday life. By incorporating contemporary symbols and products, such as cell phones and computers, modern social realities are often reflected. New forms of coded communication and individuality are being shaped by the current digital generation through the vast fabric of data, information and rapid communication systems.

Cloaks of Visibility: TXT Styles at African Art

TXTStyles/Fashioning Identity

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