On view beginning April 11, 2008
Through their foundation, dedicated to “the human encounter,” John and Dominique de Menil acquired more than one thousand African objects from the 1950s onward. As profound humanists, the couple believed that all peoples struggle with meaning, and that art is a way by which cultures and individuals seek to better understand themselves and their place in the world.
The artworks in the African collection focus on the human form and so offer insight into a range of human experiences: a Dogon mother and child figure that speaks to birth and regeneration, a terra-cotta from the Inland Niger Delta of Mali depicting a body ravaged by disease, and a Kongo power figure seeking out the spiritual source of affliction in the world provide but a few examples. From the perspective of the de Menils’ vision, these objects are evidence of how African cultures have celebrated existence, related to their surroundings, and confronted questions of human meaning. These objects, like the de Menils’ collection as a whole, afford spiritual insight to us today.
The re-installation of the African galleries will involve nearly one hundred objects from the collection, many of which have never previously been on view at The Menil Collection. (The galleries were originally installed by Dominique de Menil and her colleagues in 1987, when the museum opened, and have remained largely intact since that time.) The galleries will be reconfigured to allow an exploration of the human form in sculpture, ranging from the miniature to the life-size, abstract to naturalistic, male to female, and familiar to foreign. It will consider how various African cultures represent their place in the physical and spiritual world, and how they communicate with their fellow living beings.
The re-installation and catalogue are generously supported by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Mr. and Mrs. Peter Hoyt Brown, The Hobby Family Foundation, and the City of Houston.
Mali, Bandiagara Escarpment; Dogon people
The Menil Collection
Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, or Angola; Kongo people
The Menil Collection
