"AN AFRICAN EYE"

Cranbrook exhibit shows African culture infusing art created around the world

By Frank Provenzano

In his meticulous and scholarly manner, Cranbrook Art Museum Director Gregory Wittkopp points out the fine details of "Kode-X" by African artist Kendell Geers.

Red-and-white tape is wrapped over jujus, Buddha statues, crucifixes and symbols of idol worship. The icons are placed on metal shelves -- the kind typically found in storage rooms -- aligned in a 12-foot-by-12-foot room with glass shards jutting from the back walls.

For Wittkopp, works like these in Cranbrook's season-opening exhibit, "Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora," offer a compelling entry into the aesthetics and realities of what he calls a long misunderstood continent.

In a diaspora centuries ago, millions of Africans were forced from their homelands and sold into slavery. They lost familiar customs, but through art, culture and language managed to remain linked to their past.

The current African diaspora referred to in "Looking Both Ways" reflects how social and political unrest, along with poverty and disease, have given many African artists few choices except to leave for the west.

Full Article : freep.com