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Email PageLecture: The Shaman's Mask and the Invention of Culture
January 19, 2008- January 29, 2008
Reception: January 19, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
John W. Nunley
RMA (Rubin Museum of Art)
150 W 17th StTickets: $12 (Includes admission to the Museum's galleries before the talk)
The Rubin Museum of Art and James Cohan Gallery are pleased to announce a public talk by Dr. John W. Nunley, the Morton D. May Curator of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the St. Louis Art Museum. The lecture will be at the Rubin Museum of Art and is being held in conjunction with MASK, the current exhibition at James Cohan Gallery of works by over thirty contemporary artists, including several specifically commissioned for the exhibition, and over 40 masks assembled by Joseph G. Gerena Fine Art, dating from 700 BCE through the 20th century and representative of all continents and many cultural traditions.
Entitled "The Shaman's Mask and the Invention of Culture," Nunley's talk will explore the origins of masking and shamanism from the ancient Far East and Himalayas through to the slave trade and Black Diaspora. During mask rituals and performances shamans became "other selves" and "were-animals" in order to tap spiritual energies from the invisible world. With the ability to abstract in spirit form the terrific forces of birth, aging and death, the shamanistic rituals of early cultures created cosmologies that served as blueprints for our survival. In the heart of darkness and the turbulent times of slavery, African masks and performances reflected the harsh realities of the slave trade and the renewed identities of Africans living in the Americas. Nunley will discuss these forms of masking and performance and the dilemma of human beings today as we stand between spiritual realms and the world of physics and science.
Dr. John W. Nunley received his PhD from the University of Washington in 1976. It was based on his field experience in Northern Ghana where he was apprenticed to a diviner amongst the Sisala people in 1972 to 1973. He taught at the University of Illinois from 1974-1982 and has been the Morton D. May Curator of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas since 1982. Nunley has been the recipient of two Fulbright-Hays Post Doctoral Research Grants for Freetown Sierra Leone (1977-1978) and another for Trinidad and Tobago (1990-1991). He has published numerous titles including Moving with the Face of the Devil/Art and Politics in Urban West Africa and Caribbean Festival Arts and Masks/faces of Culture. He is currently working on a book and exhibition entitled African Art and the Experience with a sequel African Diaspora and the Experience of Art.
Rubin Museum of Art is located at 150 West 17th Street at Seventh Avenue. Tickets $12. Please contact the RMA Box Office to purchase at 212.620.5000 ext. 344.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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