Robert Goldwater Library blog

This just in ...: Expedition

Vol. 50, no. 1 (spring 2009)

Selected contents via Expedition's site:

Features

“Who Shall Be Our Sustainer?” Sacred Myth and the Spoken Word by Allen J. Christenson

Out of the Past and into the Night: Ancient Mythical Dwarfs in Modern Yucatan by Judith A. Storniolo

Crossing Boundaries: Maya Censers from the Guatemala Highlands by Sarah Kurnick

Bullfights in Mayaland: How Rural Yucatecans Reinvented “Death in the Afternoon” by Allan Myers

Special Feature

Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya by Elin C. Danien

Find this issue in WATSONLINE

[Image source: Mythical dwarf seated with ruler (Photograph K4889 © Justin Kerr)]

Notes and comments

He smiles and nods slightly, like an actor, and they simply stare at him, their faces like masks, he thinks, those tribal masks in the Metropolitan Museum that are always a little disturbing to visit, because they suggest ceremonies and superstitions that are passionate and dangerous. He has always taken care to keep such thoughts from his waking life. --

ANALYTIC HOUR: How Do You Feel About That? by Alec Wilkinson, in the March 16, 2009, issue of The New Yorker

This just in ... : JPS

From the most recent issue (v. 117, no. 4, December 2008) of the Journal of the Polynesian Society:

A Recently Revealed Tino Aitu Figure from Nukuoro Island, Caroline Islands, Micronesia
ROGER NEICH

A previously unknown Nukuoro figure in the private collection of Mina and Ed Smith of San Diego and on temporary display at the De Young Museum, San Francisco.

Click here to access the online version through WATSONLINE.

This just in ...: African arts

Vol. 42, no. 1 2009 : Contemporary Expressive Culture in Ethiopia

The most recent issue of African Arts (Spring 2009) is devoted to the contemporary arts of Ethiopia. In the special feature entitled "Beyond Wide-Eyed Angels: Contemporary Expressive Culture in Ethiopia," guest editors Peri M. Klemm and Leah Niederstadt intend "to present new research on Ethiopian expressive culture that illuminates how some of the complexities of the modern experience, particularly within the post-Socialist period, influence art."

Selected contents:

Beyond Wide-Eyed Angels: Contemporary Expressive Culture in Ethiopia
Peri M. Klemm, Leah Niederstadt

Contemporary Ethiopian Painting in Traditional Style: From Church-based to Tourist Art
Elisabeth Biasio

Icons of Devotion/Icons of Trade: Creativity and Entrepreneurship in Contemporary “Traditional” Ethiopian Painting
Neal Sobania, Raymond Silverman

Oromo Fashion: Three Contemporary Body Art Practices among Afran Qallo Women
Peri M. Klemm

Revered Vessels: Custom and Innovation in Harari Basketry
Belle Asante Tarsitani

Fighting HIV with Juggling Clubs: An Introduction to Ethiopia's Circuses
Leah Niederstadt

* The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End
Alisa LaGamma

Click here to access the online version through WATSONLINE (choose Art Index or MIT Press Journals)

Pacific History Bibliography and Pacific Filmography go online

The following notice appears in issue no. 3 of The Journal of Pacific History:

From 2008 the annual bibliographies published by The Journal of Pacific History will be available online from http://rspas.anu.edu.au/jph/ ...

The titles included are Pacific Filmography and Pacific History Bibliography. At this writing the bibliographies do not yet appear to be available online.

This just in ... : Tribus

L'art de Kanda-Kanda / Rik Ceyssens. (Tribus, v. 57 (2008), p. 49-67)

The author recasts the Kanyok 'sub-style' of the Luba as identified by Olbrechts as chiefly the artistic production of the Kanda-Kanda region, a garrison and administrative center, and border town of the Kanyok kingdom. Much of the art collected there was made primarily for export.

This just in ... : Baessler-Archiv

Different Ways of Seeing: Modes of Social Consciousness in Mesoamerican Two-Dimensional Artworks / Susan D. Gillespie. (Baessler-Archiv, vol. 55 (2007), p. 103-142)

"This study examines how artistic canons employed in prehispanic Mesoamerica for representing spatial settings in two-dimensional images can provide clues to modes of social consciousness ... Within prephispanic Mesoamerica there is a striking contrast as to whether verticality or horizontality was emphasized in two-dimensional artworks, especially between Classic Maya and Postclassic central Mexican examples ..." -- Abstract

... and three articles on Wilhelm Gretzer and his collections:

Posibilidades y limitaciones para la reconstruccion y recontextualization de la coleccion Gretzer del Museum Etnologico de Berlin / Beatrix Hoffmann -- La collecion Gretzer en el Museo de las Culturas del Mundo, Gotemburgo (Suecia): una pieza mas del rompecabezas / Gloria Esteban -- Die Fotosammlungen von Wilhelm Gretzer im Fotoarchiv der Niedersachsischen Landesmuseum Hannover: Eine Bestandsaufnahme / Andreas Behrens. (Baessler-Archiv, vol. 55 (2007), p. 165-196)

This just in ... : Indiana

Das tiermenschliche Verwandlungsgesicht einer Gottheit. Ikonografische Studie zu einem polymorphen Gefäß der altperuanischen Moche-Kultur / Bärbel Lieske. (Indiana, vol. 25 (2008), p. 95-116)

Summary: The investigation concerns a Moche jar from the collection of the ethnological museum in Berlin. It is a so called polymorph jar, plastically formed by different figures. What makes the jar fascinating is its very uncommon composition. Without any connection as relates to the content, the jar’s surface is made up of a huge mask-like face, two fishes, a seal head, an iguana creature, the head of a bird, a pair of wings and an owl. In the present study, the attention is mainly directed to the expressively modelled, human-like and deformed-hybrid face that dominates the jar. The asymmetric halves of the face are interpreted as the physiognomy of a double face: half human, half animal. This face, which has a numinous character due to a pair of carnassials, is interpreted as the image of a Moche’s sea god who has the ability to transform his stature.

Click here to locate a copy of Indiana in WATSONLINE. The journal is not available online, but you can see abstracts of the issue contents here.

This just in ... : Oceania

'We don't do dots -- ours is lines': Asserting a Barkindji style, by Lorraine Gibson. (Oceania, v. 78, no. 3, November 2008, pp. 280-298)

"This paper offers an ethnographic exploration of the assertion of a 'Barkindji style' art: why this matters and to whom it matters. Focusing particularly on the Darling River area of Wilcannia and on the period from the 1980s to the present, the increasing interest in art-making by local Aboriginal people is considered. Through a dialogue with artists, artworks, and others, the work examines the changing form, design and content of art and the role of art in defining ideas of Barkindji Aboriginal culture and tradition ..." -- Abstract

War shields of the Torricelli Mountains, West Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, by Barry Craig, Gilbert Lewis, William E. Mitchell. (Oceania, v. 78, no. 3, November 2008, pp. 241-259)

Oceania is available in print only. Click here for availability of this issue.

This just in ...: Tribal

Tribal : the magazine of tribal art celebrates its 50th issue.

Contents of the Autumn/Winter 2008 (vol. 13, no. 1) issue (via Tribal Art):

ART on view :

• The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End (LaGamma, Alisa)
  •     On view at the Met September 30, 2008–April 5, 2009

• Pacific Treasures: The Masco Collection Goes to Los Angeles (Harding, Julian)

• New Galleries for the Ancient Americas at LACMA (Fields, Virginia M. ; Lyall, Victoria)

• Art of the Arctic at the Musée du Quai Branly (Gramly, Richard Michael)

• Oceania: Ritual Signs, Authority Symbols (Herreman, Frank)

FEATURE :

• Fang Masks of Equatorial Africa (Perrois, Louis)

TRIBAL people :

• An Interview with Marc Franklin (Dimondstein, Joshua)

OBJECT History :

• The Easter Island Statue in Brussels (Cauwe, Nicolas)

SPOTLIGHT :

• Master Hands of the Lega (De Grunne, Bernard)

ART + Law :

• Binoche vs. Mexico (Hewitt, Simon)

PORTFOLIO :

• Images of Plains Indians by Karl Bodmer (Tom McLaughlin)

Click here to check in WATSONLINE on availability of the print version

Click here to access the online version through WATSONLINE (not yet available as of 12/19/08)