- Art in Its “Natural” Habitat
- After visiting one of permanent exhibits of the Denver Art Museum, I managed to assess how various pieces of the art collection appear in a systematic arrangement. Among the pieces of collection, that I managed to assess included an African art that represented how the culture of the early people in Africa looked like. The exhibition of the collection considered much of the art from the African communities. The exhibition was in one of the museum’s buildings divided into various rooms. The rooms in the exhibition were reflecting white paint and the floor consisted of furnished tiles. The walls in the exhibition had a white paint with various contexts regarding the view of Westerners on the art collection. The exhibition provided an experience from the African community and their interest in the world of art.
- I managed to enter all the rooms of the exhibition with the African art collections. In all these rooms, the curator of the exhibit displayed various artifacts. The first room had several objects from one of the African community living in Kasai. From a closer view, I managed to assess a raffia textile on the wall that had a Kuba woman’s skirt rapper. On the platform, there was a rope bundle consisted of Zande hunting net. A metal blade placed on the right side of the room was reflecting light because of the white paint. According to the writings on the wall of the room, the metal blade served as a currency during payment for dowry in this community. The museum arranged the objects apart and I had a chance of viewing and touching each of the objects in this room.
- The second room also had a white paint with a video showing the memorial posts from the Mijikenda community. This room was small comparing with the first one. The video showing the memorial posts were unedited and held no translation. The video displayed the memorial posts from this community as sculptures. The tutor managed to assemble various posts from many graves to make aesthetic and spectacular presence. According to the video placed at the center of the room, the posts appeared to be having an inauthentic setting. The video showed that the post had a certain significant importance to this community. The video also showed how the community created the posts. The art collection being a learning opportunity demonstrated how women contributed in this community. In the room, there were sculptures of three people illustrating building of the sculptures.
- The third room had interesting objects from the Hampton Institute. According to the objects that rated back to 1905, they developed an eager for zoology curiosity. The objects were from an African community but were in Hampton Institute for recreation. The exhibition of this room reflected how objects from the African community could be fascinating and impressing. The curator arranged the objects in a systematic manner that offered an opportunity for touching and reading the information about them on the wall. This room was the biggest one comparing to the others and offered the space to arrange the objects in a fabulous way.
- The fourth room had objects from the African community displayed as in art history museum. The objects in the room were associated with the metal sculptures illustrating various items that most of the African communities use in their daily life. The objects also presented sculptures of various humans performing certain duties like cooking. The curator had arranged the objects in a way that every one had a chance to examine them closely. According to the experience I gained from the exhibition, I arrived to a conclusion that the objects in all the four rooms presented an artifact. The reason is that the objects were not the idea of the first artist but had gone through recreation.
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