Symposium: Davis Discoveries: The D’mba on DisplayFriday, April 7, 2017 - 2:00pm to 4:30pmCollins Cinema Reception to follow in the Davis Lobby
In 1959, New York gallerists and Wellesley parents John J. and Halina Klejman donated a D’mba shoulder headdress to the Wellesley Art Museum. Since then, it has been displayed as sculpture: as a single, isolated artwork on a pedestal. Many museums now seek ways to portray more fully the masquerades for which the D’mba was created and question how best to convey dance in a gallery context. Should our D’mba stand on its pedestal, or should it be dressed in a raffia dress and cotton shawl, as if ready to dance? This afternoon symposium features presentations by Frederick John Lamp, Curator Emeritus of African Art at the Yale Art Gallery, Christopher Steiner, the Lucy C. McDannel ’22 Professor of Art History and Anthropology at Connecticut College, and Yaëlle Biro, Associate Curator for the Arts of Africa at the Metropolitan Museum, in conversation with Amanda Gilvin, Assistant Curator at the Davis.
Supported through the generosity of Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis Museum.
Friday, April 7, 2017 -
2:00pm to 4:30pm
Collins Cinema
Reception to follow in the Davis Lobby
In 1959, New York gallerists and Wellesley parents John J. and Halina Klejman donated a D’mba shoulder headdress to the Wellesley Art Museum. Since then, it has been displayed as sculpture: as a single, isolated artwork on a pedestal. Many museums now seek ways to portray more fully the masquerades for which the D’mba was created and question how best to convey dance in a gallery context. Should our D’mba stand on its pedestal, or should it be dressed in a raffia dress and cotton shawl, as if ready to dance? This afternoon symposium features presentations by Frederick John Lamp, Curator Emeritus of African Art at the Yale Art Gallery, Christopher Steiner, the Lucy C. McDannel ’22 Professor of Art History and Anthropology at Connecticut College, and Yaëlle Biro, Associate Curator for the Arts of Africa at the Metropolitan Museum, in conversation with Amanda Gilvin, Assistant Curator at the Davis.
Supported through the generosity of Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis Museum.