Primitifs ?
Abbaye de Daoulas
Until 18 November
www.abbaye-daoulas.com

__To gather and put in presence, from the point of view of a comparison of European and non European civilizations, works concerned with the arts known as “wild”, “first” or “primitive”, come from the whole world, around some elementary structures of imaginary, to make thus perceptible their secret relationships, to testify finally to the convergence of arts, which gives, according to Senghor, its direction and its unit with humanity; such are the objectives of the exposure 2007 of the Abbey of Daoulas. It is, indeed, of the work of Léopold Sédar Senghor, its sights and its visions, that the exposure is inspired “Primitive? ” It draws in particular its “argument” from the conviction of the Senegalese “poet-president” that the diversity of the people and their cultures can, since it is preserved, found the only “universalization” which is worth: that where “all the cultures, by all the races, all the planet Ground”, recognized with parity the ones with the others, grow rich by the mutualisation by their respective contributions at the same time as they carry testimony of the deep unity of the human adventure. Where better than in Brittany, this country “not tarnished Latin dust” (Maurice Barrès), can one make perceive that “primitivism” is not exotic but what it is a manner of expressing the world, if not a way of living it? what it isn't the prerogative of remote tribes (and, in the spirit of some, moved back) but an original form to apprehend it beyond appearances, to mean “on-reality”? The exposure “Primitive?” finally a double ambition is given: to render comprehensible, in particular with public young people, that the other is never but another ourselves and that it is necessary for us to learn, according to the word of Heidegger, with “us dépayser in our own origins”; to make perceive that it is in the creation of “works of Beauty” that the men find finally the expression highest of their fraternal size.

To Have and To Hold, African Containers
Mathers Museum of World Cultures
Until 21 December
www.indiana.edu

__Almost 60 different types of containers from throughout Africa are exhibited, including bowls, bags, baskets, bottles, and buckets.
__"What makes these objects beautiful is the patina of use," says Ellen Sieber, Curator of Collections at the Mathers Museum. Sieber has compiled ethnographic references for the exhibit explaining the cultural, economic, and functional uses of the containers, which vary from honey pots to communal drinking bowls. The exhibit also explores origins of the artifacts, as well as the different natural materials used in creating the containers, such as clay or gourds.

Temple of the Warriors, rebuilding a Maya Monument
University of Colorado Museum
Until 21 December
cumuseum.colorado.edu

__In 1924, a major restoration project began in the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itza. A team assembled by the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.C. ventured into the jungles of the Yucatan to reconstruct the spectacular monument known as The Temple of the Warriors. Among the teams illustrious members were noted archeologists Ann and Earl Morris. Working side by side over 4 long field seasons, the couple helped make archeological history with their innovative work in reclaiming the great stone structure.
__The project was documented from beginning to end, greatly expanding what was known of the Maya at the time. The magnificence of the site and thoughtful execution of the work can be seen in unique images from the University of Colorado Museum's historic collection of hand-painted, glass lantern slides. The personal accounts of Ann and Earl in the exhibit help transport visitors to the site and daily life. They reveal the challenges and inspirations of working in the remote jungles of the Yucatan in the shadow of one of the greatest ancient civilizations found in the western hemisphere.

CLAY: Southwestern Indian Pottery Tiles
Arizona State Museum
Until October 14
www.statemuseum.arizona.edu

 __In the late ninteenth century, Hopi potters began producing decorated tiles for sale to visitors arriving via the railroad. Other tribes, inspired by the Hopi’s success experimented with this form and created their own interpretations, a tradition which continues to the present. This exhibition showcases more than 75 different tiles, including works from early twentieth-century Hopi artists Fanni Nampeyo and Sadie Adams, and Zia Pueblo artist Harvianna Toribio. The tiles on display reflect not only the traditional approaches from the earliest days of tile-making, but also contemporary and innovative designs that push the envelope of the materials and form.

Doors in Global Perspective
Fowler Museum
Until 1 December
www.fowler.ucla.edu

__Doors separate and define space, facilitating passage between interior and exterior, private and public, sacred and profane. The astonishing range of doors in the Fowler Museum collections demonstrates that doors are not just doors. These carved, embossed, embroidered, beaded, and painted portals from around the world illustrate extraordinary artistry and the wide conceptual variety that diverse cultures bring to the uses, meanings, and potentialities of doors. In the Fowler in Focus gallery inside Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives, see twenty elaborate doors from palaces, tombs, granaries, ceremonial houses and more.

Material Choices: Bast and Leaf Fiber Textiles
Fowler Museum
Until December 30
www.fowler.ucla.edu

__In a world awash in a global trade of industrially produced cottons and synthetic fabrics, it is easy to forget that all of the cloth needed in any community once had to be woven by hand and that much of it was made from bast or leaf fibers. Today even the word bast, which refers to a layer of fibers found in the stems of plants, is unfamiliar to many people.
__Bast and leaf fibers are notoriously difficult to process and weave into cloth, yet weavers around the world have learned to capitalize on the materials’ subtle natural beauty and to manipulate complicated and demanding dye procedures to great effect. In Material Choices, see an unusual array of garments and more made of these challenging fibers, explore their significant use in the Pacific, and examine the current state of many bast and leaf fiber weaving traditions that nearly became extinct in the mid-20th century but have now undergone a revival.

Chinese jade
British Museum
Exposition virtuelle
www.britishmuseum.org

__Jade has always been the material most highly prized by the Chinese, above silver and gold. From ancient times, this extremely tough translucent stone has been worked into ornaments, ceremonial weapons and ritual objects. Recent archaeological finds in many parts of China have revealed not only the antiquity of the skill of jade carving, but also the extraordinary levels of development it achieved at a very early date.
__Jade was worn by kings and nobles and after death placed with them in the tomb. As a result, the material became associated with royalty and high status. It also came to be regarded as powerful in death, protecting the body from decay. In later times these magical properties were perhaps less explicitly recognised, jade being valued more for its use in exquisite ornaments and vessels, and for its links with antiquity. In the Ming and Qing periods ancient jade shapes and decorative patterns were often copied, thereby bringing the associations of the distant past to the Chinese peoples of later times.
__This tour illustrates examples showing the development of Chinese jade from around 5000 BC to the modern period. The subtle variety of colours and textures of this exotic stone can be seen, as well as the many different types of carving, ranging from long, smooth Neolithic blades to later plaques, ornaments, dragons, animal and human sculpture.

FACE à FACE, le masque dans la bande dessinée
Musée du masque de Binche
Until 6 April 2008
www.museedumasque.be

__The International Museum of the Carnival and the Mask of Binche organizes a temporary exposure entitled “Face to face, the mask in the comic strip”. It proposes a confrontation between the image of the masks in the comic strip and those of the impressive collections of the museum.
__Fifty four masks are exposed there which come from forty-five different authors. Among those, Vandersteen, creator of Bob and Bobette, with the Standaard editions; Tibet and Duchateau, creators of Ric Hochet, published by Lombard; Desorgher and Desberg, authors of Jimmy Tousseul and published at Dupuis; and finally Franquin, with its Black thoughts, published by Icy Fluid.
__The masks are presented in with respect to an enlarging of the label of the corresponding comic strip. An explanation on the album, the author and the edition as on the mask is also proposed.
__Today, the comic strip touches all the generations. Just like the mask, it made its appearance early in civilization and makes it possible to tell a history. The frescos and the low-reliefs of the ancient worlds can be compared with comic strips because they use the sequence of images to tell a history.
__The museum does not cease evolving/moving since its creation thanks to widening of its collection and through the exposures sets of themes. With this exposure, as ludic as scientific, the museum wishes to make as well discover its splendid collections with the people and families impassioned by the comic strip as with a public interested by the traditions masked in the world.

Silver: from Fetish to Fashion
The Bead Museum
Until April 30, 2008
www.beadmuseumaz.org

__Extraordinary silver jewelry from the far reaches of the globe awaits visitors in this unusual exhibition. The allure of silver spans continents and centuries. In many cultures it was and is still considered a sacred metal imbued with unique properties of protection and healing. Exquisite pieces transcend the label of ethnic jewelry to become fashion statements beyond borders.
__Tribal people purposefully wear silver for various reasons including: adornment; honoring the ancestors; healing; protection; portable wealth; and to lock the wearer’s soul to their body. Some of the most dramatic pieces are from the hill tribe peoples of Northern Thailand. The H’mong, Lisu, Akha, and Dong people cover themselves in massive, usually hollow, pieces making bold statements about cultural identity.
__The jewelry is divided into six regions: North Africa & the Arabian Peninsula; The Americas; Southeast Asia; Central Asia; China; and India. Select pieces provide a sampling of techniques and symbolism that share commonalities throughout the cultures represented in these regions. The pieces are generally no older than the mid-19 th century; others are contemporary.

The Beauty of Use
Mingei International Museum
Until May 11, 2008
www.mingei.org

__Mingei International Museum at 30 celebrates the timeless beauty of folk art, craft and design from all eras and cultures. The Museum's 30th anniversary exhibition, featuring handmade objects of daily use from many cultures across the world, encourages visitors to discover with fresh eyes the beauty in tools, utensils, currency, clothing and adornment, jewelry, furniture and ritual and ceremonial objects. On view are masterworks from the Museum's permanent collection, now numbering 17,500 objects from 141 countries, exemplifying the universal and timeless nature of mingei - art of the people.
__Variously and elegantly executed, even the most mundane objects please the eye and satisfy the spirit. A series of doors from several cultures opens the exhibition to viewers. Featured are a collection of 19th-century African tribal currency, each piece surprisingly ornate; a group of masks including an opulent example of __Amazonian feather work; ritual objects such as an intricately carved elephant-headed god Ganesha from India; a monumental Plains Indian basket; and a Sicilian donkey cart covered with brightly painted historical and mythological motifs.

Hats of Africa: From Asante to Zulu
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Until September 7, 2008
www.imamuseum.org

__More than 50 traditional head coverings representing 30 ethnic groups from across Africa show the great cultural diversity of the continent. See hats made for a variety of purposes made from a variety of materials, including cloth, leather, feathers, shells and hair. Many of the pieces on display have never been exhibited.

Highlights From the Paul and Clara Gebauer Collection of Cameroon Art
Portland Art Museum
Until 31 December
www.portlandartmuseum.org

__The Paul and Clara Gebauer Collection of Cameroon Art , one of the finest collections of Cameroon Grasslands art in the United States, was originally acquired by the Portland Art Museum in the early 1970s. Now, some 30 pieces from Portland’s famous collection of close to 300 rare items return to display. These masks, utilitarian objects, horn carvings, metal sculpture, and more provide a rare glimpse into the rich culture of Cameroon unavailable almost anywhere else.

Animal
Musée Dapper
From 11 October 2007 to 30 March 2008
www.dapper.com.fr

__In Africa, the animals take the leading role in the myths, legends, tales, songs, proverbs and riddles, that perpetuate and enliven the arts of speech. Leurs représentations plastiques, fréquentes dans sculpture, sont the visible phase d'une symbolique puissante ET complexe. Celle-ci est à l'oeuvre dans them cérémonies d'initiation, them rituels propitiatoires, them pratiques thérapeutiques, them actes of divination ET of sorcellerie.
__It forms animale, parfois mêlée à DES traits humains, permet of représenter DES esprits théoriquement invisible. Sculpture donne “to chair” à présence invoquée. Selon them canons culturels ET esthétiques if variés qui font richesse exceptionnelle DES arts d'Afrique, figuration peut être clairement naturaliste, ou allusive, voire métaphorique, fréquemment composite, hybride, stylisée parfois jusqu'à l'abstraction. Mais métamorphose surnaturelle qui gouverne ne peut to s'opérer qu'au prix of rituels complexes, où him sacrifice d'un animal réel occupe unites pleases essentielle.

Madagascar, paroles d’ancêtres
Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Asie de Vichy
Until October 31
www.musee-aaa.com

__The arts are a oratories extraordinary wealth of the Malagasy culture. Parole carries them recommandations DES ancêtres ET them préoccupations modernes. Him réel n'existe that s'il est my in mots dans them proverbes, them contes, them textes DES musiques, them discours du quotidien ET DES cérémonies.
__Of paroles in musiques, chaque espace of l'exposition livre unites ambiance sonore, unites vérité, unites tradition grâce à l'outil multimedia.
__Between objets du passé, images sonores ET photographies d'aujourd'hui, Madagascar, Paroles d'ancêtres illustre rolls to him I privileged between them générations.

Masques d’Afrique de l’ouest. Donation de Mr Fredric
Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Asie de Vichy
Until October 31
www.musee-aaa.com

__By mask, one indicates the costume which entirely dissimulates the carrier. That Ci gives up its human personality and becomes one moment the receptacle of a spirit or an ancestor. Always accompanied by music and songs, the masks dance, requiring protection of the invisible forces.
The masks intervene in the great events of the social and religious life.
__The secret societies, made up of initiates, control the political and legal life villages. The ceremonies marking the stages of life like the design, puberty and death are in their capacity. The secret societies manage also certain agricultural festivals and of ritual in the honor of the ancestors. In all the circumstances, the masks are their agents of execution.
__(George Frédric was born on January 22, 1919 in Saint-Etienne. Doctor of pharmacy, it integrates the army and becomes “pharmacist chemist of the health service of the armies”.
__In 1950, accompanied by its wife, Simone, George Frédric is named pharmacist chief of Dahomey, ex-Benign. It is responsible for the provisioning for the dispensaries and hospitals.

The Rich Artistic Tradition of Kashmir
Asia Society
Until 6 January 2008
www.asiasociety.org

__Asia Society is pleased to present the first-ever major exhibition devoted to the rich artistic tradition of Kashmir. An important cultural bridge between the Indian subcontinent and regions to the west and east for over two millennia, the Kashmir Valley was a vibrant hub of intellectual activity for its Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim populations. Multiple cultural influences have fostered a unique artistic environment of diverse aesthetics, witnessed in this landmark exhibition of 130 sumptuous objects of exemplary quality, dating from the 2nd to the 20th centuries.
__The Arts of Kashmir comprises works of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic art, including sculpture, painting, and calligraphy loaned from collections in the U.S., Europe, and India. Many of the objects have never been seen outside of India; in some cases they have never been exhibited or published anywhere.
__To provide a sense of the broad artistic contributions of this famously lush and beautiful region, the exhibition includes examples of stone and bronze sculptures and manuscript paintings, in addition to the fine examples of papier-mâché, carpets, shawls, and embroidery for which Kashmir is renowned.

Un genevois autour du monde, Alfred Bertrand
Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève
Until December 9
www.ville-ge.ch

__Young shareholder, impassioned voyages and burning defender of the Protestant missions, Alfred Bertrand (1856-1924) joined together during his many cruisings and exploration an important collection of photographs.
__The exposure “a Genevese goshawks of the world” presents an outline of its album bequeathed to the MEG and wonders about the use of the images and its stakes since end the XIX century until our days.

Le Vaudou, un art de vivre
Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève
From December 5, 2008 to August 31
www.ville-ge.ch

__To open the file of the Haitian voodoo, it is to open immense limps black. Emerge pêle-mixes strange odors, zombies wandering, scenes of possession, rough objets d'art, phantasms on brutality, a little love and jealousy, some craniums human, of great productions Hollywoodiennes, two or three planted headstocks their pins, a perfume of mystery, African notes, a nation of released slaves, without forgetting these sanguinary dictators and some coups d'etat…

__Translucent World is a unique presentation of Chinese jade from the outstanding collection of the Palace Museum, situated in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The exhibition features the manifold uses of jade to depict nature. Often natural forms are used to symbolise the various popular ideas concerning human beliefs and emotions. The group of more than 180 works is representative of all periods of Chinese jade carving, from Neolithic times to the Qing dynasty. It illustrates the different uses of this most precious stone and the variety of carving techniques used across history. The key object is a marvellous a carved jade mountain over one metre high depicting The Nine Elders of Huichang, commissioned by the Emperor Qianlong in 1787

__Step into the windswept world of Ice Age mammoth hunters. Walk through a replica of an 800-year-old pueblo dwelling and imagine your entire family cooking, eating, and sleeping in one small room. Explore the Aztec empire and its island capital, Tenochtitlan, a city of more than 200,000 people and an extraordinary feat of engineering for any era.
__The Field Museum's ground-breaking new exhibition, The Ancient Americas, takes you on a journey through 13,000 years of human ingenuity and achievement in the western hemisphere, where hundreds of diverse societies thrived long before the arrival of Europeans. You'll discover what Field Museum scientists and others have learned about the people who lived in the Americas before us, and how it's changing nearly everything we thought we knew!
__In this 19,000-square-foot permanent exhibition you'll experience the epic story of the peopling of these continents, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. To tell that story, the galleries of The Ancient Americas are organized in a uniquely revealing way: not in chronological order around isolated cultures, as in traditional museum exhibitions, but around the diverse approaches people have developed to meet the challenges they face.
__Discover how and why certain cultures changed over time, developing farming, creating new forms of artistic expression, and forging mighty empires. See more than 2,200 artifacts, fantastic reconstructions, and dozens of videos and interactive displays that depict the amazing ingenuity with which ancient peoples met the challenges of their times and places...as we meet ours today.

__Art and footwear worn by accomplished American Indians.
Shoes as footwear and as art serve as the departure points for this exhibition which traces the history of shoes in American Indian culture utilizing early examples from the Heard's collection as well as contemporary

__From bold, beaded patterns to softly dyed hides with delicate beaded trim, the works in the exhibition Plains Indian Beadwork from the Donald Danforth Jr. Collection reveal the highly refined tastes of local collector Donald Danforth Jr. The exhibition features pipe and saddle bags, moccasins, and clothing created during the 19th century by the Apache, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa and Lakota nations. This collection of artworks serves as an aesthetically brilliant testimony to the strengths and endurance of American Indian culture.
__The objects included in the exhibition were made for utilitarian purposes and imbued with symbolism central to the beliefs of their creators. The Pair of Leggings are representative of old warrior societies and are decorated with pale blue beads, which were favored by the Crow, and horsehair that has been dyed bright orange. When worn by a warrior riding a horse, the streaming hair and hide fringe would have made a powerful impression. The beaded lozenge designs on the front of the Cheyenne Cradleboard represent amulets that would have protected the child in the carrier by uniting significant forces in the universe. The four points of these designs also symbolize the cardinal directions.

__October 21, 2006 through April 15, 2007. More than 2000 years ago, along the Silk Road through what is now Kazakhstan, came warriors and merchant caravans from faraway kingdoms — Persia, Syria, China and Greece. With these travelers came the art of their cultures, which was adopted and adapted by the people who lived on the route. Among these were the Scytho-Sakian people of southern Kazakhstan — the fabled Scythian horsemen. Contemporaries of Darius I and Alexander the Great, they fashioned objects of adornment in elegant, animal forms from gold, bronze and wood. These are to be seen in OF GOLD AND GRASS — Nomads of Kazakhstan, which opened October 21 and continues through April 15, 2007.
__Creatures that inhabited the region north of the Tian Shan Mountains — horses, tigers, snow leopards, deer, ibexes and panthers are among the animals portrayed as intricate, stylized, sculptural ornaments in the Wild Animal Style, a synthesis of foreign and indigenous design developed by the Scytho-Sakian culture. This culture also produced the Golden Warrior found in the Issyk Kurgan (burial mound). A replica of the Golden Warrior, a nobleman whose clothing is adorned in Wild Animal Style ornaments of gold, is on view at Mingei International.

__The exhibition Discovering Buddhist Art – Seeking the Sublime returns to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, installed in new rooms and made more comprehensive by the inclusion of Chinese works, allowing visitors a greater understanding of Asian Buddhist art.
__Approximately 90 pieces of sculpture, painting, ritual implements and textiles illustrate the spectacular development of Buddhist arts from India, China, Tibet, Korea, Thailand and Japan and trace the influence of indigenous artistic styles and materials over 2,200 years. Intended for a wide audience, Discovering Buddhist Art promises to be more than an introduction and is designed to evoke new views and stimulate appreciation for the art and material culture of one of the world’s most widespread religions.
__Various Buddha sculptures, including two standing Buddhas—one from China around 600 A.D., the other from eleventh-century Japan—will be on display in the first gallery of the exhibition. The second gallery will include a rich variety of Buddha and Bodhisattva images along with a pantheon of related beings, illustrating the breadth and depth of Buddhist artistic creativity. The final gallery of this exhibition will feature an installation suggesting a ritual space, replete with an Amida (Buddha of Infinite Light), two Bodhisattva, four guardian kings, and temple ornaments produced from the eleventh and the eighteenth century in Japan. This unique installation will serve as an excellent introduction to Buddhist art while simultaneously evoking fresh views and concerns of Asian aesthetics.

Native People of the Southwest
Heard Museum
www.heard.org

__Experience the Heard's most prized masterpieces, sweeping landscapes, poetry and personal recollections on an unforgettable journey through the Southwest and the vibrant arts and cultures of Native people. Quotes and interviews with artists and Native communitty members are interwoven throughout the exhibition reflecting on the importance of family, community, land and languages. Join us for an exciting trip through the American Indian Southwest, from the distant past to today.
__Nearly 2,000 treasures including jewelry, cultural items, pottery, baskets, textiles, beadwork and more.
__* 500 Hopi katsina dolls on display from the Goldwater and Harvey Company collections.

Living Water
University of Sydney Museums
Dates to be seen
www.usyd.edu.au

__Looks at the diversity of people’s experiences living with, and without, water through the Macleay’s ethnographic collections.
__This exhibition is shown in conjunction with Dreaming Water at the Art Collection, War Memorial Gallery, University of Sydney

Ceramics
National Museum of African Art
Dates to be seen
www.nmafa.si.edu

__The beauty and richness of Africa's pottery resonates through the traditional and modern ceramic works of art collected by the National Museum of African Art. The continent's master potters--primarily women--display their dexterity by handbuilding a variety of vessels, coloring their surfaces with slips or other concoctions prepared from clay or vegetable sources, incising or impressing decorations with wood or metal tools, and firing the vessels at low temperatures. The rich earthen bodies of their creations are often decorated and sometimes burnished.
__The museum has 140 ceramic works from different regions of the continent. Among the most important are a group of 85 vessels from Central Africa. A few of these pieces are displayed here along with other traditional works, including a beer container from the Chewa peoples of Malawi, a water vessel from the Yoruba of Nigeria, and water and oil containers from the Berber of Algeria. Contemporary and figurative ceramic works are on view on Level 1.

__With thirty-six objects, the Circus of the Sun becomes the principal partner of these new rooms of African art to the Museum of the fine arts of Montreal. Its founder and chief of the direction, Guy Laliberté, undertook, almost ten years ago, to join together a corpus of muséale quality, which constitutes a course representative and traditional of works of sub-Saharan Africa. All these acquisitions were made according to rigorous criteria's of seniority, authenticity and aesthetic quality. They come from old collections, sometimes historical, joined together by European and American amateurs famous, such as Paul Guillaume, Charles Ratton and Helena Rubinstein, among others. Among works an extremely rare female statuette gouro appears, bought in 1949 in Paris by the American painter John Graham and his friend, the New Yorkean collector max Granick. These sculptures of old art realized between the medium of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, are presented for the first time at the public montréalais. The first African objet d'art entered to the Museum of the fine arts of Montreal in 1940, thanks to F. Cleveland Morgan, enlightened and preserving amateur of decorative arts of the Museum of the fine arts of Montreal, of 1917 to 1962. Ten works of the collection of the Museum appear in this presentation, of which a major figure duléri of the people dogon (Mali) carved between the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, representing a character whose ornaments suggest a high row. The majority of the parts belonging to the collection of the Redpath museum of the McGill University come from central Africa (Angola and Congo) and were collected at the end of the nineteenth century. Five important works of this collection are presented, for one two years duration, in crowned Africa, among which a figure nkondi, coming from Congo, realized with the nineteenth century, in the body of which are inserted metal points and objects.