Balancing Aesthetic Value and Cultural Significance in the Display of African Objects

When one places an object on a pedestal or encloses it within a glass box, one physically ascribes certain significance to the object. The context in which one places this elevated object assigns further implications to it and influences the perceptions of the audience of the object. In a particular context, the object can be characterized as art; in another the same object can be transformed into an anthropological item used to explain a particular culture or the significance a group of people designates to the object. Specifically, this paper discusses the characterization of African art objects displayed before a Western audience. Are they treated as objects with aesthetic value or as supplements to explanations of culture and religion? To what extent should museums offer interpretations or otherwise shape audience understanding of the meaning and or value of the art they present? These questions on the balance of an object’s aesthetic value and cultural significance are particularly pertinent when displaying African art to a Western audience. Selecting to emphasize appearance or to favor an educational understanding of an object in a particular exhibit becomes especially blurred in an African art exhibit because the objects were not created with the intent of being placed in a museum. Because of this both geographic and cultural distance, how the audience perceives the object is heavily dependent on how the object is displayed. Should the art world transform an object created for everyday use into a valued piece of artwork or should the object be an educational visual aid, and are both options mutually exclusive? Though there is no right or wrong answer, I believe that an object can be displayed as an art piece and be simultaneously educational.

A central theme in the discourse on the display of African art is how to anticipate and address the audience for the artwork. It is not simply enough to display a particular piece, one must decide in what manner one wants to exhibit the object. In a gallery specific to African art, there are no labels on the artwork. The gallery-goers and potential art purchasers are expected to be able to recognize the artwork and know at least some of its history and value. In a public museum, curators make the assumption that the observer knows little about the African art world, and adjust their exhibits to account for this dearth of information in the public sphere (Lecture 4 February 2009).

A twentieth century Congo Puna figure is successfully displayed as art while being educational in the permanent African collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.



It is placed on a low, white pedestal with a spotlight beaming down at it from above in contrast to the dim lighting prevalent throughout the exhibit. This display invites the perception of an aura around the piece, elevating it to the status of art just as the statue is raised to eye-level. The curator showcases the object as a work of art, highlighting its aesthetic aspects and almost declaring that this piece is art. Accompanying the statue is a label that not only explains the artist, date and medium, but also its function and use within the Congo society. The label reveals that the figure is a fertility object, represented by the figure’s pronounced genitals (Observation 9 November 2009). Viewing the figure is no longer a purely aesthetic experience, but it is now an educational activity as well. I believe LACMA is effectively displaying this figure for its value as an art object while simultaneously being educational. By including this explanatory label, the museum is neither adding to the experience of the museumgoer nor detracting from the value of the object as art.

The American Museum of Natural History has a clear educational purpose, and the displays there serve as graphic tools and learning materials to further this goal.



Its exhibits focus on anthropology and attempt to help the museumgoer understand the culture of various peoples in other parts of the world. The set-up of the museum is such that the displays support the text of an exhibit and serve as visual aids helping to illustrate a particular facet of a culture. For example, the African section contains a small display towards the back of the exhibit entitled “Beauty.” A lengthy text at eye-level describes how cattle are seen as particularly beautiful in a certain African culture and how this value is translated into a children’s game. The children collect small white stones and name them, treating the stones in the same manner as their parents treat their cattle. If one looks down to waist level, there is a glass display case containing several of these white stones (Observation 10 August 2009). The set-up is such that the objects themselves are not the focal point of the display. Rather, the description provided in the text about the game, and by extension the concept of beauty in cattle, becomes the main purpose of the display, with the objects serving to give the viewer a visual contextualization of the cultural aspect. The objects are displayed as clearly functional pieces, as supports for a text, rather than for their appearance. Though the rocks are the embodiment of beauty within this particular African culture, they are not displayed as beautiful objects in the anthropology exhibit, but serve to augment the text, emphasizing the scholarly nature of the installation. The perception of the stones changes because of the display; the Western audience does not view them the same way that one might view a diamond or precious stone because of the way in which the stones are displayed, though the culture where they originated did hold the stones in the same regard as valuable jewels. I believe that the Natural History Museum could have easily displayed the stones as art reminiscent of valuable jewels and still have included an explanatory label if the stones were in a glass case with a spotlight.

The Louvre in Paris is a museum that consistently includes only the artist and the date on the labels next to each work (Lecture 25 March 2009).




Figure 1 below depicts an African object from Guinea displayed in the Louvre without any labels that would help to illuminate or elucidate the meaning or function of the artwork.

Figure 1



Instead, the text (not depicted in Figure 1) nominally supports the object. The relationship between the text and the artwork is minimal, constructing the central role of appearance that an art museum display traditionally stresses. But would a label explaining the functionality of the piece on the right wall detract from the piece as art? I think it would simply provide more background to the piece.

Thought the act of displaying an object carries much significance with it and assigns the object different meanings and interpretations, art can be displayed both for appreciation of form and visual aesthetics and displayed in a scholarly manner to evoke understanding and meaning. Because most African art pieces were originally household objects, the art world is free to assign new meaning to an object; it can be transformed from an object created for everyday use into a valued piece of artwork or into an educational visual aid, or both. As Susan Vogel states, African art does not have the legacy of being displayed in art museums and there is not a general public consciousness of African objects belonging in an art museum, resulting in an open discourse on the appropriate, rapidly changing ideas for design of these exhibits. Though there is no right or wrong answer on how African objects should be displayed in museums, I would hope that museums serve as a place where anthropology and art combine so that museumgoers can both appreciate and understand art.