Radiance from the Rainforest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, By Heidi King. Tribal Art, no. 48 (spring 2008), p. 64-67.
Available in print in the Goldwater Library (A W97 No. 48 (Spring 2008)) or Online via WilsonWeb.
Crown
Chimú 14th–15th century
Fiber, hide, reeds, copper, feathers; H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Jane Costello Goldberg, from the Collection of Arnold I. Goldberg, 1986 (1987.394.655)
From the NY Times, June 5, 2008:
Klaus Perls, Art Dealer Who Gave Picassos to the Met, Dies at 96
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Klaus G. Perls, who sold art for more than 60 years at the Perls Galleries and donated an important collection of African royal art from Benin and modern works by Picasso and Modigliani valued at more than $60 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died on Monday in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 96 and lived in Armonk, N.Y. ...
In 1991 the Perlses gave 153 pieces of African royal art from Benin, which are in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Met. Those included bronze figures, elephant tusks carved with royal figures, musical instruments, decorative masks and jewelry ...
Masquerade Element (Omama): Ram's Head, 17th–19th century
Nigeria; Yoruba, Owo subgroup
Ivory, wood or coconut shell inlay; H. 6 in. (15.24 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, 1991 (1991.17.123)
In a nice display of publishing synergy, Museum Anthropology (the blog) has just reproduced color images to accompany an article recently published in Museum Anthropology (the journal), Crests on Cotton: “Souvenir” T-shirts and the Materiality of Remembrance among the Kwakwaka’wakw of British Columbia by Aaron Glass (vol. 31, no. 1 (spring 2008), p. 1-16).
Note to our readers: You can access the article online (via Anthrosource) or consult our print copy (A C854).
While in this instance the blog is meant to supplement the print and online journal, the journal will no doubt benefit from visits by blog readers wanting to know more behind the images appearing in the blog post.
Excerpted and reblogged from the New York Times, published May 20, 2008:
Project Digitizes Works from the Golden Age of Timbuktu
by John Noble Wilford
< A legal opinion on the rules for buying and selling goods. (Credit: Savama-DCI)
From Timbuktu to here, to reverse the expression, the written words of the legendary African oasis are being delivered by electronic caravan. A lode of books and manuscripts, some only recently rescued from decay, is being digitized for the Internet and distributed to scholars worldwide ...
Now, the first five of the rare manuscripts from private libraries have been digitized and made available online (www.aluka.org) to scholars and students. At least 300 are expected to be available online by the end of the year.
Reblogged from the Textile Museum web site:
BLUE
April 4 - September 18, 2008
> Hiroyuki Shindo, Shindigo Space 07 (detail), 2006. 'Shindigo shibori'-dyed cotton and hemp and Shindigo balls (polystyrene wrapped with hemp and dip-dyed). Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Joel Chester Fildes.
The human perception of color is a complex sensory phenomenon filtered through the eyes, brain, language and multiple layers of social experience. While shades of red (examined in the 2007 Textile Museum exhibition RED) quicken the pulse and increase blood pressure, blue induces a calming effect and is widely perceived as a “cool,” tranquil color.
> Kain panjang (long cloth, hip wrapper) detail, Indonesia, Yogyakarta (in the style of Ceribon), Chinese-Indonesian, 20th century. Commercial cotton, resist patterning. The Textile Museum 1998.11.16. Gift of Beverly Deffef Labin Collection.
BLUE explores the creation and meaning of the color blue on textiles produced across time and place, with particular emphasis on contemporary artists’ use of natural indigo dyes. Until the invention of chemical dyes in the late 19th century, peoples worldwide relied largely on indigo-bearing plants to achieve blue-colored garments, household furnishings, artworks and even body paint. Many cultures attributed talismanic properties as well as health benefits to indigo, and the mysterious transformation of this temperamental dye has long been steeped in myth and magic ....
BLUE is curated by Lee Talbot, Assistant Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, and Mattiebelle Gittinger, Research Associate, Southeast Asian Textiles.
Associated Events:
(Registration required)
April 10
BLUE Lecture Series: "A Passion for Indigo: My Fascination with the Exotic Past and Exciting Future of this Unique Dyestuff"
Jenny Balfour-Paul, Scholar and Artist
Thursday, 6:30 pm
April 24
BLUE Lecture Series: "African Blues"
Lisa Aronson, Associate Professor of Art History, Skidmore College
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 1
BLUE Lecture Series: "Transforming Blue: From Seed to Dye, Indigo in Contemporary Japan"
Rowland Ricketts, III, Artist
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 15
BLUE Lecture Series: "Indigo Immortal: The History and Global Culture of Levi's Jeans"
Lynn Downey, Historian, Levi Strauss and Company
Thursday, 6:30 pm
May 22
BLUE Lecture Series: "Indigo: A Personal Journey"
Hiroyuki Shindo, Artist and Mary Lance, Filmmaker
Thursday, 6:30 pm
Reblogged from the NY Times (via Associated Press), April 10, 2008:
Easter Island: Statue Vandal Fined $17,000
< Chilean Investigative Police released this photo showing the damage to the right earlobe. (AP Wirephoto via CNN)
A Finnish tourist who chipped an earlobe off an ancient statue on Easter Island two weeks ago for a souvenir is being allowed to go home after paying a $17,000 fine and agreeing not to return for three years, the police said. At the request of prosecutors, he also wrote a public apology for damaging the 13-foot-tall moai, as the statues are known.
Previously reported more fully on CNN.com/World.
Rex at Savage Minds has re-posted a very helpful (if unattributed) blog post with suggestions on "how to use commonly available and completely free tools on the Internet in order to keep up to date with the latest literature in anthropology." He offers to updated it regularly if there is sufficient interest from the readership.
The focus of the original post is Pacific Islands research, and the choices may reflect that. Here's what's covered:
Even if you already do all this, you might want to skip down to the "Final Thoughts" entry, where the unintended consequences of Total Information Awareness are addressed.
Originally spotted on ARLiSNAP:
An visually exciting and comprehensive web site on four Maya archaeological sites has just been posted by Charles Rhyne, professor emeritus of art history, and his colleagues at Reed College. [Kudos to Prof. Rhyne, who was my academic advisor at Reed.]
Architecture, Restoration and Imaging of the Maya Cities of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil and Labná "includes over 1000 photographs ... taken on site, with descriptive captions, including architectural and sculptural details, paint remains, and interior spaces, not previously published. In addition, there are over 250 19th century drawings, prints and photographs and another 300 by early 20th century scholars, many previously unpublished, showing the appearance of these four cities before the extensive restoration campaigns of the twentieth century." While the site was produced by Reed College primarily for the use of its faculty and students, the site will certainly be of interest to a wider audience of specialists and non-specialists alike.
Of particular note to the library research-minded are the extensive scans culled from published works including Waldeck's Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dan la province d'Yucatan (1838), the several works by Stephens and Catherwood from the 1840s, as well as Charnay's Cités et Ruines Américaines (1862-63) and Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885), photographs by Le Plongeon, and Seler's monograph on the ruins at Uxmal.
An extensive bibliography is included, sorted into four separate pdf files by subject, author, title and date.
< March 28, 2008, Ross Day and Erika Hauser (Goldwater Library) in the newly installed Oceanic wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
via Sarah Falls @ ARLIS/NA at Altitude (The official blog of the ARLIS/NA 36th annual conference in Denver, Colorado May 1-5, 2008). This podcast runs best with iTunes. It can also be streamed from Ourmedia.
Interview 1: Ross Day and Erika Hauser
Sarah FallsOn March 28, 2008, I sat down with Ross Day and Erika Hauser of the Goldwater Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We discussed their outreach efforts with web 2.0 technologies through such sites as Flickr, Wikipedia and with blogging.
To listen to the interview, click here (mp3 format) Interview #1
Sites to visit for the Goldwater Library:
Library blog: http://goldwaterlibrary.typepad.com/
Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/people/goldwaterlibrary/
Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Goldwater_Library
Library wiki: http://goldwaterlibrary.wikidot.com/er-introduction
You can also click on the top bar of the audio player below:
Reblogged in part from BibliOdyssey, 3/30/2008:
Mexico and Environs ['Mexico y sus Alrededores']
The album of chromolithographs, 'México y sus Alrededores' (Mexico and Environs), is online at NYPL. [A copy of the original is held by the Thomas J. Watson Library here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.] The principal lithographer/artist for the project was Casimiro Castro, one of Mexico's foremost landscape artists in the nineteenth century. The forty illustrations were originally published in 1855-1856 [available at Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (click 'leer'), which includes the text]. The version at NYPL was published in 1869.
Speaking of NYPL, check out the newly designed Digital Gallery, announced as a 'soft launch' last week.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons (Attribution: 3.0) License (US),
though the work this blog incorporates may be separately licensed.
