In the spring of 1935, The Museum of Modern Art in New York unveiled a groundbreaking exhibition that would forever alter Western perception of African art. Organized by Alfred H. Barr Jr., director of the Museum at that time, and James Sweeney, guest exhibition director, “African Negro Art” strived to enhance the aesthetic as well as artistic and abstract qualities of the works, existing in contrast to the then conventional presentation of African art as ethnographic artifacts. Showcasing the remarkable diversity of African artistic traditions, this installation of 603 loaned sculptures provided a transformative visual experience that opened paths to speculation on the impact of the carvings on modern artists in Europe and America.
The below installation view shows the carefully curated minimalist style of the exhibition. The arrangement of African sculptures, largely right up against the white wall perimeter of the room, prevented the viewing of them as sculptures, since the visitors would not be able to walk around the piece. The intention behind this presentation was to avoid distraction, and focus the viewer’s attention on the art itself and thereby producing an aesthetic response (Virginia-Lee Webb, Perfect documents Walker Evans and African Art, 1935, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000, p. 19).
Foreseeing the historical and educational significance of the exhibition, Barr commissioned American photographer Walker Evans to document the objects displayed. Shooting only when the exhibition was closed to the public, Evans’ schedule was limited to before 10 A.M. and after 5 P.M. During the shooting process, Evans would compose each shot and rotate the lights in a circular motion while creating the exposure. This gave the photographs a soft universal light, with no harsh shadows. This technique brought out the tonal range on the objects and emphasized their forms.
Ultimately, Evans produced 17 portfolios each with 477 photographs. Some of the portfolios were distributed free, and the remainder were offered by subscription to various institutions. Among the institutions that received the portfolios were New York University; the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard; Howard University and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. One set stayed in The Museum of Modern Art Library. The majority of the photographs in the portfolios were contact printed and then cut down to varying sizes; some portfolios contains mounted prints and some contained unmounted prints and there are slight variations to the sizes of the images among the portfolios. The 34 prints offered here were likely once part of a portfolio that was subsequently broken up.
Evans’ elegant images of the sculptures long remained overlooked, with interest and appreciation in the images revived by an exhibition of the work by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Perfect Documents: Walker Evans and African Art, 1925, 2000) as well as by several published articles revisiting the project, many of which point out that the term ‘negro’ was used at the time of the exhibition to describe people of African heritage, and has since fallen out of use and has increasingly been considered offensive. The project has come to be seen as a stylistic link between Evans’ earlier and later photographs. With a wide variety of subjects in form and function to explore, Evans was given a chance to chronicle the sculptures within his emerging vision of classic “documentary style.” Tight-fitting of subjects within a frame, concentrated yet source-less illumination are some of the characteristics of his highly personalized approach that he would apply to his future subjects (Virginia-Lee Webb, Perfect documents Walker Evans and African Art, 1935, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000, p.13, 14, 21). The African portfolio remains an integral part of Evans’ memorable career.
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