The Mask
Mankind’s face-worshipping craze in the late modern era peaked through the Western world’s global colonization. Western ethnology scholars and researchers began a series of studies recording measurements of faces and skulls, especially those strange ones from exotic colonies. It was also at this point in time, Western African masks, as the faces of the others, became a perfect kind of symbolic objects. They were imported to Europe in large quantities, becoming treasured antiques of collectors, while also triggering a revolution of creative methods of art. For example, a group of critics and artists led by Carl Einstein began to describe these objects from foreign lands through aesthetic perspectives; their works, in addition to defining the so-called African art, have profoundly influenced the way we see even until today. In recent years, when returning problematic African sculptures becomes a huge headache for Western museums, Asian collectors have seemingly become a new generation of powerful consumers. Although their acquisitions do not equivalent to Western colonial looting, their ideology and methodology have obviously referenced Western viewpoints, and such facts have also been reflected through their display methods and publications.
In the sound installation The Mask, a sculpture vendor from CΓ΄te d’Ivoire selects five masks originally from his hometown that are currently in the archive of National Museum of China in Beijing, and compiles and writes the possible stories of how these artifacts were acquired; a foreign student from Seychelles in East Africa, who is studying fine arts and Chinese in Beijing, records the audio guide for these works.
Graphite Drawing: Kru Grebo Mask © Musquiqui Chihying
Installation View at UCCA Beijing, © Musquiqui Chihying
