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African Visions
Sculpture, Textiles, Paintings and West African Hairdresser Signs
Fine Old Yoruba Figure of Kneeling Woman
Yoruba people, Nigeria
wood with organic encrustation
(13 1/4" h. x 6 1/4" w. x 6 3/4" d.)
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Show Dates: November 5, 2004 to January 30, 2005
Opening Reception: First Friday, November 5, 5 to 9:30 pm.
Gallery Hours: Monday - Saturday, 11 - 6:30 pm,
Sunday, 12 to 6:00pm,
Location: Indigo Arts Gallery, 151 N. 3rd St. (2nd Floor)
Old City, Phila. PA 19106 215-922-4041
Philadelphia, PA - Indigo Arts Gallery in Old City demonstrates the many different expressions of African creativity with the exhibition African Visions, opening on November 5th. Like the ambitious exhibit currently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, African Art, African Voices, the show includes work of many media and styles. Indigo Arts draws on its own extensive collection of traditional African art, collected over the last 36 years, as well as the work of contemporary African artists. Founded in 1986, Indigo is Philadelphia’s oldest established gallery for African Art.
The exhibit includes a variety of masks, sculpture and furniture from west and central Africa, ceramics from Nigeria and Mali, basketry from the Zulu of South Africa. There are raffia-cloth ceremonial skirts from the Kuba of Zaire, strip-woven kente fabrics of the Ashanti and Ewe of Ghana and ashoke cloth from the Yoruba of Nigeria. The bogolanfini “mudcloth” by Mali’s greatest living master of the art, Nakunte Diarra. Also featured are more contemporary folk arts such as hairdressers’ and barber-shop signboards from Ghana, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and other countries in West Africa, and baskets, toys and other objects made from recycled tin cans and telephone wire.
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Millenium Tresse & Tissage
Hair-braider's Sign (#bs117)
by Lawa, Togo, c.1990s
Oil paint on plywood (43x24)
$450 |
Nakunte Diarra
Bamana bogolan artist from Beledougou region, Mali
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Kran Judgement Mask
Kran people, Liberia
wood, earth, animal skin and hair (9" h.)
$475 |
Ewe Kente Cloth (#ekc-3)
Ewe people, Ghana, mid-20th cent.
24-strip cotton kente cloth
(partial view shown)
(116"l. x 80"w.)
$650 |
Indigo Arts also exhibits work by some of Nigeria’s leading contemporary artists of the last forty years, notably the flamboyant painter and musician, Twins Seven-Seven (b. 1945). Prince Twins Seven-Seven was one of the original artists of the famed Oshogbo School (named for the city of that name), which arose in the newly independent Nigeria of the early 1960’s. Seven-Seven rapidly achieved international fame, with major exhibitions in Europe, Japan and Australia as well as the United States, and his work is now in museum and private collections around the world. Twins Seven-Seven's autobiography, a Dreaming Life, edited by Ulli Beier, was published in 1999 by Bayreuth African Studies, Bayreuth, Germany.
We are fortunate that today he lives in the Philadelphia area. One of Twins Seven-Seven’s paintings is featured in the Philadelphia Musem of Art show, African Art, African Voices, and he was interviewed in a recent Channel 10 (Philadelphia) television special.
Father and son artists Yinka and Kola Adeyemi, Adeniji Adeyemi, Isaac Akindele, Prince Layi Orogun Ademoinore the late Rufus Ogundele and Asiru Olatunde also came out of the Oshogbo art movement.
African Visions opened on First Friday, November 5th, with a reception from 5 to 9:30 pm, and continues through December 31st.
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Baby Naming Ceremony
Twins Seven-Seven (1945 -), Oshogbo, Nigeria
1990
Oil and acrylic on canvas
(14 3/4" h x 15 1/4"w)
$1575 |
Twins Seven-Seven at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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Dream of a Tired Hunter
Twins Seven-Seven (1945 -), Oshogbo, Nigeria
1984
Etching
(18" h x 12"w)
$1000 |
The Percussionist in Elephant Riding Dream
Twins Seven-Seven (1945 -), Oshogbo, Nigeria
1989
Oil & acrylic on canvas
(32" h x 15"w)
$2800 |
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Musicians
Yinka Adeyemi (1941 -), Oshogbo, Nigeria
1977
Lino print on paper
(24" h x 18"w)
$650 |
Sisi Eko
Kola Adeyemi
Oshogbo, Nigeria
2004
Oil on paper (17 3/4" h x 15 1/2"w)
$375 |
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African Visions curator and Indigo Arts co-owner, Tony Fisher has been immersed in the culture and art of Africa since he first moved to Ethiopia at the age of four. The son of an American economist working in the US foreign aid program, he spent much of his childhood living in six different countries in Africa, and returned to do development work there as an adult. He was exposed to African art early, though his father’s collecting. But his interest was reignited when he studied African art at Yale with Robert Farris Thompson. One of the primary contributors to the current PMA show, Thompson revolutionized the once dusty field of scholarship with such ground-breaking studies of African art as African Art in Motion and the Flash of the Spirit. “Bob Thompson taught us to see African art, not as static objects locked in museum cases, but as alive, vital and infused with spirit” he recalls. “Masks are to be worn, and are best observed in motion, preferably while dancing oneself.”
In 1986 Fisher joined partner Devi Cholet in founding Indigo, a gallery and store of international folk art, in Philadelphia. There they offered masks, sculpture, textiles and jewelry collected in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, as well as Africa. Eighteen years and five locations later, Indigo Arts Gallery is still going strong in Old City, Philadelphia, and its website, www.indigoarts.com, serves collectors around the world.
Indigo Arts , a Gallery of Ethnographic, Folk and Contemporary Arts from Asia, Africa, and the Americas, is located at 151 North 3rd St. (Second Floor) in Old City, Philadelphia, 19106. For further information contact Anthony Fisher at (215)922-4041, or go to www.indigoafrica.com.
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Bamana Antelope Mask
Bamana, Mali,
wood (25"h.),
$525 |
Igbo Mask
Igbo people, Nigeria
wood w/ kaolin & other pigments
(12 1/2"h.x 7 1/2"w. x 5 1/2"d.)
$375 |
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Imbenge
Zulu "Hardwire"Wire Basket - pictorial style (#zwb231)
South Africa
Recycled telephone wire w/ steel wire core
(13 3/4"d x 1 1/2 " h)
$185 SOLD |
Dancing Skirt (#ks-72)
Kuba people, Dem. Rep. Congo, late-2oth cent.
Raffia cloth with raffia cloth applique, natural dyes
(154"l. x 30"w.),
Partial view shown
$390 SOLD 8/04
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Seated Bamana Female Figure
Bamana people, Mali
wood with mineral pigments, organic encrustation
(27" h. x 6 1/2" w. x 6 1/2" d.)
$950 |
Chokwe Mask
Chokwe people, Democratic Republic of Congo,
wood w/ kaolin and natural pigments, copper wire (earrings)
(8 1/2"h.x 6 1/2"w. x 3 3/4"d.)
$625 (including custom stand) SOLD 11/04 |
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Twins Seven-Seven and troupe at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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Twins Seven-Seven and troupe at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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Princess Seven-Seven at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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Twins Seven-Seven and Princess at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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Twins Seven-Seven and troupe at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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African sculpture at Indigo Arts Gallery
November 5, 2004
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1400 North American St., #104 • Philadelphia, PA 19122
Phone: (215) 765-1041 • Toll Free: (888) INDIART • Fax: (215) 765-1042
E-Mail: indigofamily@indigoarts.com
Al l photographs and text Copyright Indigo Arts Gallery, LLC., 1998-2009. Use without permission prohibited.
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