{"id":4733,"date":"2019-06-07T16:27:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T16:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=4733"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:13","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2019\/06\/07\/welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Morton has curated an exceptional exhibit of African art that entices you with open arms.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s intentional\u2014you know that, right?\u201d says Associate Professor of Art Elizabeth Morton as she leads us into Dimensions of Power<\/em>, the African art exhibit at the University of Notre Dame\u2019s Snite Museum of Art. Art Director Becky Wendt and I had been marveling about the enticing entrance to the exhibit. Everything seems to say, \u201cWelcome.\u201d From the bright lighting, white walls with contrasting dark floors and ceiling, transparent cases, and large indigo robe posed with arms open, it was a reminder of the tradition of hospitality so pervasive throughout the cultures and countries of Africa.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt was essential that the exhibit be visually engaging,\u201d Morton explains, noting that parts of the collection had previously been displayed downstairs in a much more confined space. When a large number of objects were donated to the museum by collector Owen D. Mort in 2013, the museum wanted to highlight the collection. It decided to move the African works to this spacious area and to hire Morton, who spent a year and a half curating the exhibit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we had to do something different with the African collection, and that\u2019s when we found Elizabeth,\u201d says Snite Museum Associate Director Ann Knoll. \u201cWe had seen the wonderful job she had done with the African collection at the IMA [Indianapolis Museum of Art]. She has a real clarity in the way she presents the information, and she does it in different ways that help viewers get familiar with the pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an incredibly collaborative project,\u201d says Morton. \u201cWe worked with Notre Dame faculty, the Africa Working Group, and I was granted two assistant curators. We did a social media campaign to learn how people would use the exhibit in teaching; how they wanted to see it presented. We heard from a lot of kindergarten through high-school teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than organize the exhibit by regions, Morton decided to focus on the economic, political, social, and spiritual power the various objects possessed in their cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of what we now call traditional art in Africa was used for a very concrete effect,\u201d Morton explains. \u201cEven what appears to be decorative has a function.\u201d<\/p>\n

That approach meant the exhibit would need a map, which led to the exhibit\u2019s most innovative feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout a map, Africa is meaningless to most Americans,\u201d Morton explains. She envisioned a touchscreen that would help visitors locate where each item in the exhibit was from, as well as additional information about the culture that produced it. A proprietary app for the museum also allows viewers to scan a QR code at each object to see videos or other media to show how the object was used.<\/p>\n

Photographer Michael Rippy made it all happen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI told him my idea; he said, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s do it,\u2019\u201d Morton says. \u201cHe looked into the technology and made into reality a vision I had only obscurely articulated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the stands had to be thoughtfully designed, Morton explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, there\u2019s a figure that looks like the image of a nun, but it\u2019s a power figure, and that is signified by a nail at the bottom of the figure. The nail connects her to the ancestors. Because professors here use that figure in their teaching, our mount maker, Aaron Nicholson, made the stand so that the nail was prominently seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very grateful to Elizabeth for bringing distinction to our African art collection and for making it more relevant to campus and community audiences,\u201d former Snite Museum Director Charles Loving writes in the exhibit\u2019s catalog.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt really is an exceptional collection of art, and so many people made this happen,\u201d says Morton. She struggles to choose a favorite piece, pointing first to a mask from the Ivory Coast she describes as being \u201cas good as it gets\u201d and a masquerade dress from Nigeria with layers of cloth and meaning that are \u201cspectacular.\u201d She fixes on a headdress for a married woman of the Herero people\u2014next to it is a photograph of the same piece being worn by the woman who made it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis photo, taken by a British colonial officer in 1935, is of this exact piece,\u201d she explains. \u201cYou just don\u2019t find this sort of combination very often, but that\u2019s the nature of this entire exhibit. It really is that remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Morton has curated an exceptional exhibit of African art that entices you with open arms. That\u2019s intentional\u2014you know that, right?\u201d says Associate Professor of Art Elizabeth Morton as she leads us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-news-and-notes","category-on-campus"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/06\/elizabeth-1-horizontal-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4733"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4742,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4733\/revisions\/4742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}